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Cogito ergo sum

Here in the Philosophy forum we will talk about all the "why" questions. We'll have conversations about the way in which philosophy and theology and religion interact with each other. Metaphysics, ontology, origins, truth? They're all fair game so jump right in and have some fun! But remember...play nice!

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  • #31
    Originally posted by mattbballman31 View Post
    Two things you'll probably find out about Tass sooner or later.

    1. He thinks that only the scientific methodology leads to knowledge (strong, epistemological scientism)

    and

    2. He doesn't even know what the methodologies of metaphysicians are. I've been asking him for eons.
    There is a list of metaphysical methods that I had not known about. And the method I use did not seem to be on the list. I have to go through it more carefully.
    . . . the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; . . . -- Romans 1:16 KJV

    . . . that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: . . . -- 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 KJV

    Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: . . . -- 1 John 5:1 KJV

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    • #32
      Originally posted by 37818 View Post
      The idea of an infinite universe. The idea of an infinite past. These are metaphysical questions. As there are others. Infinity in standard algebra is not defined. In calculus it is used as a limit.

      In the classical cosmological argument for God an infinite regress is claimed impossible for the cause of our known universe. I do not believe it is impossible. I just do not believe that this is the case. Those are two different beliefs that I hold. So I disagree with the cosmological argument for God on the point that an infinite regression is impossible for our known universe to be. It can only be known to be impossible from knowing God created our heavens and earth uniquely (Genesis 1:1). We have no way of knowing what God has not told us. So if God created (John 1:3) infinite realities beyond our heavens and earth and having always created such, where there is no only such creation ever - no first ever. So what?
      Science is the systematic study of the physical, material world, so these are scientific questions, NOT metaphysical questions.
      “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

      Comment


      • #33
        Originally posted by Tassman View Post
        This counts as a rebuttal in your world does it?
        Well, duh, considering 'your world' grossly misrepresents Aquinas.

        Only science has the capacity to demonstrate verifiable “truth” as per fact or reality and in relation to the OP on the classical cosmological argument.
        So much ambiguous garbage. What is science? Have you solved the demarcation problem? Please call The Nobel Foundation to get your Nobel Prize! Postal address: The Nobel Foundation - P.O. Box 5232, SE-102 45 Stockholm, Sweden Street address: Sturegatan 14, Stockholm Tel. +46 (0)8 663 09 20 - Fax +46 (0)8 660 38 47. Let me know what they say! Many branches of science have distinctive methods and practices, but none of them constitute necessary and sufficient criteria for the practice of science across the board.

        - Some sciences seek to provide causal explanations of natural phenomena; others merely provide mathematical descriptions of them.
        - Some sciences seek to discover natural laws; others try to reconstruct past events.
        - Some sciences perform controlled laboratory experiments; others don't.
        - Some sciences name, classify and organize natural objects; others explain general categories of
        events, often by reference to natural laws or general theories.
        - Some sciences construct simplified and idealized models of natural phenomena; others don't.
        - Some sciences study repeatable phenomena; some don't.
        - Some sciences assess their theories by making predictions; others test their theories by
        evaluating their explanatory power; some use both.
        - Some sciences test theories in isolation; others compare the predictive or explanatory power of
        competing hypotheses in an effort to determine the best explanation.
        - Some sciences study only what can be directly observed; other sciences make inferences about
        entities or processes that cannot be observed directly and are only known through the effects
        they are postulated to have.
        - Some sciences reason deductively, some reason inductively, some reason abductively, and
        some use all three modes of inference.

        Given this diversity, how could one argue in regard to any evidence-based mode of rational explanation that it is, or isn’t, science? Any defense or rejection of something as scientific or unscientific respectively requires a definition of science, and there are no universal necessary and sufficient criteria in the offing for this purpose.

        Your fetishizing of "verification" is disgustingly simplistic as anyone familiar with the history of science would be aware. Both verification and falsification simpliciter have problems in terms of theory confirmation. Verification/falsifiability is closely connected with observability, BUT the existence of unobservable entities can be justified as the best explanation of certain observable effects and, more broadly, theories can be tested by their explanatory power with reference to a range of data. This happens all the time in science.

        Truth? What the heck is that? What's your theory of truth? Approximate truth? Verisimilitude? Are you a scientific realist? If you are, Stephen Hawking, Leonard Mlodinow, Bas van Fraassen, Thomas Kuhn, et al. disagree with you. It just sucks when you can't whirl around this laughably ludicrous talking point and think it's self-evident.

        What's a fact? Don't you know facts are theory-laden? Are you still living in the 16th century, thinking that scientists collect observational data in a manner free of all prejudice (idols of the tribe, idols of the cave, idols of the marketplace, and idols of the theater, that is, deceptive beliefs common to all, prejudicial beliefs arising from the interests of the individual, errors arising from misconceptions and misunderstandings inherent in linguistic communication, and false beliefs acquired because of sophistry and false teaching)? You think scientists then organize their data in some logically perspicuous way, again without any presuppositions or constraints being assumed?

        Reality? What the heck is that? You think that's self-evident among philosophers of science? Are you a realist or an antirealist? Reality as perceived? Reality as measured? Anything behind that? Is perception/measurement all there is? Can we approximate to whatever is behind it? Do we have to approximate to perceptions/measurements? Is reality the thing-in-itself? Independent of measurements/perceptions? Are some facts the effects of observation, or are some facts dependent on observation, and what's the criteria for this? Reality is a metaphysical concept. Science gets at empirical reality. That's all. Not reality-in-itself. Werner Heisenberg said: " . . . we have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning." If you're talking about reality-in-itself (that it exists, that it's intelligible, that it's logically structured, etc . . . ), that's a philosophical position not exposed to the scientist's method of questioning.

        The OP was talking about a cosmological argument that relies on, as one of its premises, the metaphysical impossibility of an actual infinite. The strategies, tactics, and methods used to lay claim on what science is, what verification is, what reality is, what truth is, or what a fact is, are the same strategies, tactics, and methods used to determine whether or not an actual infinite is metaphysically impossible. Discard such strategies, tactics, and methods, and you discard all the presuppositions that science uses to get off the ground to validate their strategies, tactics, and methods. So, you have a choice. Either keep such strategies, tactics, and methods to validate science's strategies, tactics, and methods, or discard them, and, along with them, any rational justification for the operation of science itself. The incy wincy price you pay is that you admit that there are strictly non-scientific methods for demonstrating verified truth and even different ways of verifying truth. At this point, it all depends on what your model for integration might be, and whether different contexts demand different applications of such a model.

        I know of no methodology to establish a verifiable true premise for a metaphysical argument. So educate me.
        Finally! Thank you for admitting your ignorance. Now, move from doodling in the back of the classroom and sit up front where you can see the chalkboard for today's lesson.

        I'll present these methodologies in the context of a three-step argument. As I already pointed out, since the demarcation problem hasn't been solved, you can even define science so broadly, that it'll overlap with the way philosophy, or metaphysics in particular, works. Here are the three steps:

        1. Rejecting philosophical methodologies will mean rejecting rational justification for accepting scientific methodologies.
        2. The reasons for rejecting philosophical methodologies will rationally compel one to implausibly reject those same methodologies when practiced by scientists.
        3. It's irrational to argue against the philosophical methodologies undergirding scientific practice without engaging in the very methodologies you're arguing against.

        Here are some examples of philosophical methodologies:

        1. Imaginability [the first five typically involve 'thought experiments' involving counterexamples]
        2. Unimaginability
        3. Conceivability
        4. Inconceivability
        5. Intuition-pumps
        6. Conceptual/linguistic analysis
        7. Demonstration via logic alone
        8. Demonstration via logic and conceptual analysis
        9. Inference to the best causal/non-causal explanation
        10. Demonstration of probability/improbability via a theory of probability
        11. Inference to the best explanation of truth conditions for particular type-propositions
        12. Direct Acquaintance

        Here are some characteristics of philosophical methodologies:

        1. A Priori
        2. Deals with the most general nature of reality, not reality itself (that's primarily for science). It deals not with how things are (science) but what they are (metaphysics).
        3. Deals with concepts where there's little to no gap between the concept and what it's a concept of.
        4. Deals with necessity, possibility, and impossibility.

        Every one of the examples, and every one of the characteristics, could be further analyzed and justified, but I'm not about to write a darn treatise in a discussion forum. For now, I'll be content with looking at a typical metaphysical issue and showing how such methodologies come into play. Then I'll show how the methodologies are completely parallel to the methodologies to justify your view, scientism. The problem with scientism is that it denounces the very methodologies it needs to justify its own practice to go about the methodologies peculiar to its domain. Even if a metaphysical dispute demonstrates the dispute was merely verbal, that's still philosophical progress.

        Go to the buffet of metaphysical topics and take your pick: general ontology, predication, being, abstracta, universals, particulars, possible worlds, causation, time, persistence through time, realism vs. antirealism, numbers, concepts, properties, relations, propositions, truth, determinism and freedom, fatalism, modality, mereology, materialism, idealism, dualism, mind, soul, identity, God, existence, logic, substance, life after death, or whatever.

        Take Hume's take on causation: constant conjunction or successive regularity. Thomas Reid came along and said constant conjunction is neither necessary nor sufficient. It's not necessary because there are anomalous, historical singularities that are causes without constancy; it's not sufficient because, for example, days don't cause nights. Okay, cool. Other metaphysicians attacked it differently; perhaps, they argue, causation isn't observational, and that it's an a priori relation. If Hume's right, all sorts of concepts, including causation, are off limits. There are all sorts of theoretical concepts that don't have to pass Hume's Fork to enter into the framework of knowledge. Such metaphysicians (and even physicists) adopted methodologies to introduce causation into said framework: extrapolation, analogy, inference to the best explanation. Causation (an unobservable) is put forth to explain empirical phenomenon. Great. So, Hume's right to conclude that we don't experience causation; we experience the connection between cause and effect. The debate has evolved significantly in the 20th century, but narrowing your focus to just this refinement from the 18th to the 19th centuries is a type of progress, analogous to the empirical progress in the sciences. What's going on here is the utilization of methodologies noted above. No amount of scientific input affects the nature of the debate at all. Nothing is affected in chemistry with advances in biology; nothing is affected in physics with advances in chemistry; nothing is affected in metaphysics with advances in physics. The only instance wherein physics would affect metaphysics is, depending upon your model of integration, in the nature of external conceptual problems. There is also overlap in the way scientific theories are modified, refined, overturned, where the core commitments of theories are tenaciously held, some auxiliary hypotheses are verified or falsified, and progress is made. One is conceptual progress; the other is empirical progress.

        Now looks at how you could demonstrate the truth of your scientism.

        1. The successful track record of scientific progress.
        2. You can apply science to every domain of knowledge.
        3. Only beliefs based on science can be tested and confirmed.
        4. Scientific findings are counter-intuitive.
        5. Science has built-in checks and balances: self-correcting mechanisms.
        6. Science ensures we know how we know what we know.
        7. Science has consensus; common-sense is subject to debilitating disagreement.
        8. Science provides evolutionary explanations that debunk many beliefs thought to be common-sense.
        9. Science shows that common-sense is riddled with bias and prejudice.
        10. Science shows that common-sense is false and/or illusory.

        Now, construct an argument using any one of these reasons with the conclusion, therefore scientism is true. Before you can get off the tarmac, you have to engage in the 6th methodological resource of philosophy to even get conceptual clarity for what scientism even is. Metaphysicians have taken up the job. Dr. Rik Peels provides 30 different versions of scientism in his taxonomy:

        1. Universal vs. Academic
        2. If universal, then either existential, moral, ontological, or epistemological.
        3. If academic, then methodological or reductive.
        4. If existential, moral, ontological, epistemological, methodological, reductive, then either full or partial.
        5. If either full or partial, then either strong or weak.

        As Peels says,

        (a) Is it academic or universal scientism?
        (b) In the case of academic scientism: is it methodological or reductive scientism? In the case of universal scientism: is it epistemological, ontological, moral, or existential scientism?
        (c) Is it full or partial scientism?
        (d) Is it weak or strong scientism?
        (e) In the case of moral and existential scientism: is it Replacement-scientism or Illusion-scientism?

        So, take "Academic, Strong, Full, Methodological, Scientism", for example. Strong means a domain of knowledge needs to be reduced to one particular science, such as physics. Full means all knowledge is to be reduced to this particular science. Methodological means that all academic disciplines should adopt the methodologies of physics. Academic means restricted to the academic, to academic disciplines. Okay, what's an argument for this thesis? Well, such arguments are hard to come by from physicists since physicists, by and large, don't have the patience to slow down and analyze what the heck they're saying. They put a darn Sputnik in space; but they can't slow down and analyze the most general theoretical concepts they use when they go about burning metaphysics at the stake. And it doesn't matter! They should just should up and calculate, and stop telling philosophers how to do their jobs. But that's neither here nor there. The issue is this: whatever premises used to prop up an argument with the conclusion that scientism is true will be premises that will not be scientific in nature, unless science is defined so broadly that it encompasses the methodologies as practiced by metaphysicians anyway. So, here's the 3 steps of my argument again:

        1. Rejecting philosophical methodologies will mean rejecting rational justification for accepting scientific methodologies.
        2. The reasons for rejecting philosophical methodologies will rationally compel one to implausibly reject those same methodologies when practiced by scientists.
        3. It's irrational to argue against the philosophical methodologies undergirding scientific practice without engaging in the very methodologies you're arguing against.

        The reason for 1 is because premises demonstrating scientism don't use scientific methodology. The reason for 2 is because of 1. The reason for 3 is because you can't denounce methodologies that use the very methodologies you're denouncing.

        So, take your pick on how you want to go about this. Give me an argument for scientism without invoking metaphysical methodologies, and without denigrating such methodologies as being just as legitimate in their domain of inquiry as scientific methodologies are in its domain of inquiry. After this is out of the way, you can be set free from this blinding, irrational bias, and you can join the company of an ever growing number of scientists that grant legitimacy to external conceptual problems from other domains of inquiry to guide scientific research programs.

        Aquinas’ blunder is that he assumes that nothing (e.g. a sequence of motion) can extend infinitely into the past. How is this not a classic Argument from Ignorance?
        Wow. Do you really not know what the Argument from Ignorance is? I defined it for you in the last post, which you conveniently ignored. ONCE AGAIN, here's the structure of an argument from ignorance:

        1. There's no reason to think that X is false.
        2. Therefore, X is true.

        If Aquinas provides a metaphysical argument against the metaphysical possibility of past-eternal, infinite sequences of motion, Aquinas isn't arguing that there's NO REASON to think such sequences are POSSIBLE, and therefore such sequences are impossible; he arguing that THERE'S GOOD REASON to think that such sequences are IMPOSSIBLE, therefore such sequences are metaphysically impossible. It's NOT an argument from ignorance. If you think it is, spell it out.

        So funny!
        Says the guy who lectures me on what counts as a rebuttal.
        Last edited by mattbballman31; 02-26-2018, 11:31 PM.
        Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
        George Horne

        Comment


        • #34
          Originally posted by mattbballman31 View Post
          Well, duh, considering 'your world' grossly misrepresents Aquinas.



          So much ambiguous garbage. What is science? Have you solved the demarcation problem? Please call The Nobel Foundation to get your Nobel Prize! Postal address: The Nobel Foundation - P.O. Box 5232, SE-102 45 Stockholm, Sweden Street address: Sturegatan 14, Stockholm Tel. +46 (0)8 663 09 20 - Fax +46 (0)8 660 38 47. Let me know what they say! Many branches of science have distinctive methods and practices, but none of them constitute necessary and sufficient criteria for the practice of science across the board.

          - Some sciences seek to provide causal explanations of natural phenomena; others merely provide mathematical descriptions of them.
          - Some sciences seek to discover natural laws; others try to reconstruct past events.
          - Some sciences perform controlled laboratory experiments; others don't.
          - Some sciences name, classify and organize natural objects; others explain general categories of
          events, often by reference to natural laws or general theories.
          - Some sciences construct simplified and idealized models of natural phenomena; others don't.
          - Some sciences study repeatable phenomena; some don't.
          - Some sciences assess their theories by making predictions; others test their theories by
          evaluating their explanatory power; some use both.
          - Some sciences test theories in isolation; others compare the predictive or explanatory power of
          competing hypotheses in an effort to determine the best explanation.
          - Some sciences study only what can be directly observed; other sciences make inferences about
          entities or processes that cannot be observed directly and are only known through the effects
          they are postulated to have.
          - Some sciences reason deductively, some reason inductively, some reason abductively, and
          some use all three modes of inference.

          Given this diversity, how could one argue in regard to any evidence-based mode of rational explanation that it is, or isn’t, science? Any defense or rejection of something as scientific or unscientific respectively requires a definition of science, and there are no universal necessary and sufficient criteria in the offing for this purpose.

          Your fetishizing of "verification" is disgustingly simplistic as anyone familiar with the history of science would be aware. Both verification and falsification simpliciter have problems in terms of theory confirmation. Verification/falsifiability is closely connected with observability, BUT the existence of unobservable entities can be justified as the best explanation of certain observable effects and, more broadly, theories can be tested by their explanatory power with reference to a range of data. This happens all the time in science.

          Truth? What the heck is that? What's your theory of truth? Approximate truth? Verisimilitude? Are you a scientific realist? If you are, Stephen Hawking, Leonard Mlodinow, Bas van Fraassen, Thomas Kuhn, et al. disagree with you. It just sucks when you can't whirl around this laughably ludicrous talking point and think it's self-evident.

          What's a fact? Don't you know facts are theory-laden? Are you still living in the 16th century, thinking that scientists collect observational data in a manner free of all prejudice (idols of the tribe, idols of the cave, idols of the marketplace, and idols of the theater, that is, deceptive beliefs common to all, prejudicial beliefs arising from the interests of the individual, errors arising from misconceptions and misunderstandings inherent in linguistic communication, and false beliefs acquired because of sophistry and false teaching)? You think scientists then organize their data in some logically perspicuous way, again without any presuppositions or constraints being assumed?

          Reality? What the heck is that? You think that's self-evident among philosophers of science? Are you a realist or an antirealist? Reality as perceived? Reality as measured? Anything behind that? Is perception/measurement all there is? Can we approximate to whatever is behind it? Do we have to approximate to perceptions/measurements? Is reality the thing-in-itself? Independent of measurements/perceptions? Are some facts the effects of observation, or are some facts dependent on observation, and what's the criteria for this? Reality is a metaphysical concept. Science gets at empirical reality. That's all. Not reality-in-itself. Werner Heisenberg said: " . . . we have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning." If you're talking about reality-in-itself (that it exists, that it's intelligible, that it's logically structured, etc . . . ), that's a philosophical position not exposed to the scientist's method of questioning.

          The OP was talking about a cosmological argument that relies on, as one of its premises, the metaphysical impossibility of an actual infinite. The strategies, tactics, and methods used to lay claim on what science is, what verification is, what reality is, what truth is, or what a fact is, are the same strategies, tactics, and methods used to determine whether or not an actual infinite is metaphysically impossible. Discard such strategies, tactics, and methods, and you discard all the presuppositions that science uses to get off the ground to validate their strategies, tactics, and methods. So, you have a choice. Either keep such strategies, tactics, and methods to validate science's strategies, tactics, and methods, or discard them, and, along with them, any rational justification for the operation of science itself. The incy wincy price you pay is that you admit that there are strictly non-scientific methods for demonstrating verified truth and even different ways of verifying truth. At this point, it all depends on what your model for integration might be, and whether different contexts demand different applications of such a model.



          Finally! Thank you for admitting your ignorance. Now, move from doodling in the back of the classroom and sit up front where you can see the chalkboard for today's lesson.

          I'll present these methodologies in the context of a three-step argument. As I already pointed out, since the demarcation problem hasn't been solved, you can even define science so broadly, that it'll overlap with the way philosophy, or metaphysics in particular, works. Here are the three steps:

          1. Rejecting philosophical methodologies will mean rejecting rational justification for accepting scientific methodologies.
          2. The reasons for rejecting philosophical methodologies will rationally compel one to implausibly reject those same methodologies when practiced by scientists.
          3. It's irrational to argue against the philosophical methodologies undergirding scientific practice without engaging in the very methodologies you're arguing against.

          Here are some examples of philosophical methodologies:

          1. Imaginability [the first five typically involve 'thought experiments' involving counterexamples]
          2. Unimaginability
          3. Conceivability
          4. Inconceivability
          5. Intuition-pumps
          6. Conceptual/linguistic analysis
          7. Demonstration via logic alone
          8. Demonstration via logic and conceptual analysis
          9. Inference to the best causal/non-causal explanation
          10. Demonstration of probability/improbability via a theory of probability
          11. Inference to the best explanation of truth conditions for particular type-propositions
          12. Direct Acquaintance

          Here are some characteristics of philosophical methodologies:

          1. A Priori
          2. Deals with the most general nature of reality, not reality itself (that's primarily for science). It deals not with how things are (science) but what they are (metaphysics).
          3. Deals with concepts where there's little to no gap between the concept and what it's a concept of.
          4. Deals with necessity, possibility, and impossibility.

          Every one of the examples, and every one of the characteristics, could be further analyzed and justified, but I'm not about to write a darn treatise in a discussion forum. For now, I'll be content with looking at a typical metaphysical issue and showing how such methodologies come into play. Then I'll show how the methodologies are completely parallel to the methodologies to justify your view, scientism. The problem with scientism is that it denounces the very methodologies it needs to justify its own practice to go about the methodologies peculiar to its domain. Even if a metaphysical dispute demonstrates the dispute was merely verbal, that's still philosophical progress.

          Go to the buffet of metaphysical topics and take your pick: general ontology, predication, being, abstracta, universals, particulars, possible worlds, causation, time, persistence through time, realism vs. antirealism, numbers, concepts, properties, relations, propositions, truth, determinism and freedom, fatalism, modality, mereology, materialism, idealism, dualism, mind, soul, identity, God, existence, logic, substance, life after death, or whatever.

          Take Hume's take on causation: constant conjunction or successive regularity. Thomas Reid came along and said constant conjunction is neither necessary nor sufficient. It's not necessary because there are anomalous, historical singularities that are causes without constancy; it's not sufficient because, for example, days don't cause nights. Okay, cool. Other metaphysicians attacked it differently; perhaps, they argue, causation isn't observational, and that it's an a priori relation. If Hume's right, all sorts of concepts, including causation, are off limits. There are all sorts of theoretical concepts that don't have to pass Hume's Fork to enter into the framework of knowledge. Such metaphysicians (and even physicists) adopted methodologies to introduce causation into said framework: extrapolation, analogy, inference to the best explanation. Causation (an unobservable) is put forth to explain empirical phenomenon. Great. So, Hume's right to conclude that we don't experience causation; we experience the connection between cause and effect. The debate has evolved significantly in the 20th century, but narrowing your focus to just this refinement from the 18th to the 19th centuries is a type of progress, analogous to the empirical progress in the sciences. What's going on here is the utilization of methodologies noted above. No amount of scientific input affects the nature of the debate at all. Nothing is affected in chemistry with advances in biology; nothing is affected in physics with advances in chemistry; nothing is affected in metaphysics with advances in physics. The only instance wherein physics would affect metaphysics is, depending upon your model of integration, in the nature of external conceptual problems. There is also overlap in the way scientific theories are modified, refined, overturned, where the core commitments of theories are tenaciously held, some auxiliary hypotheses are verified or falsified, and progress is made. One is conceptual progress; the other is empirical progress.

          Now looks at how you could demonstrate the truth of your scientism.

          1. The successful track record of scientific progress.
          2. You can apply science to every domain of knowledge.
          3. Only beliefs based on science can be tested and confirmed.
          4. Scientific findings are counter-intuitive.
          5. Science has built-in checks and balances: self-correcting mechanisms.
          6. Science ensures we know how we know what we know.
          7. Science has consensus; common-sense is subject to debilitating disagreement.
          8. Science provides evolutionary explanations that debunk many beliefs thought to be common-sense.
          9. Science shows that common-sense is riddled with bias and prejudice.
          10. Science shows that common-sense is false and/or illusory.

          Now, construct an argument using any one of these reasons with the conclusion, therefore scientism is true. Before you can get off the tarmac, you have to engage in the 6th methodological resource of philosophy to even get conceptual clarity for what scientism even is. Metaphysicians have taken up the job. Dr. Rik Peels provides 30 different versions of scientism in his taxonomy:

          1. Universal vs. Academic
          2. If universal, then either existential, moral, ontological, or epistemological.
          3. If academic, then methodological or reductive.
          4. If existential, moral, ontological, epistemological, methodological, reductive, then either full or partial.
          5. If either full or partial, then either strong or weak.

          As Peels says,

          (a) Is it academic or universal scientism?
          (b) In the case of academic scientism: is it methodological or reductive scientism? In the case of universal scientism: is it epistemological, ontological, moral, or existential scientism?
          (c) Is it full or partial scientism?
          (d) Is it weak or strong scientism?
          (e) In the case of moral and existential scientism: is it Replacement-scientism or Illusion-scientism?

          So, take "Academic, Strong, Full, Methodological, Scientism", for example. Strong means a domain of knowledge needs to be reduced to one particular science, such as physics. Full means all knowledge is to be reduced to this particular science. Methodological means that all academic disciplines should adopt the methodologies of physics. Academic means restricted to the academic, to academic disciplines. Okay, what's an argument for this thesis? Well, such arguments are hard to come by from physicists since physicists, by and large, don't have the patience to slow down and analyze what the heck they're saying. They put a darn Sputnik in space; but they can't slow down and analyze the most general theoretical concepts they use when they go about burning metaphysics at the stake. And it doesn't matter! They should just should up and calculate, and stop telling philosophers how to do their jobs. But that's neither here nor there. The issue is this: whatever premises used to prop up an argument with the conclusion that scientism is true will be premises that will not be scientific in nature, unless science is defined so broadly that it encompasses the methodologies as practiced by metaphysicians anyway. So, here's the 3 steps of my argument again:

          1. Rejecting philosophical methodologies will mean rejecting rational justification for accepting scientific methodologies.
          2. The reasons for rejecting philosophical methodologies will rationally compel one to implausibly reject those same methodologies when practiced by scientists.
          3. It's irrational to argue against the philosophical methodologies undergirding scientific practice without engaging in the very methodologies you're arguing against.

          The reason for 1 is because premises demonstrating scientism don't use scientific methodology. The reason for 2 is because of 1. The reason for 3 is because you can't denounce methodologies that use the very methodologies you're denouncing.

          So, take your pick on how you want to go about this. Give me an argument for scientism without invoking metaphysical methodologies, and without denigrating such methodologies as being just as legitimate in their domain of inquiry as scientific methodologies are in its domain of inquiry. After this is out of the way, you can be set free from this blinding, irrational bias, and you can join the company of an ever growing number of scientists that grant legitimacy to external conceptual problems from other domains of inquiry to guide scientific research programs.



          Wow. Do you really not know what the Argument from Ignorance is? I defined it for you in the last post, which you conveniently ignored. ONCE AGAIN, here's the structure of an argument from ignorance:

          1. There's no reason to think that X is false.
          2. Therefore, X is true.

          If Aquinas provides a metaphysical argument against the metaphysical possibility of past-eternal, infinite sequences of motion, Aquinas isn't arguing that there's NO REASON to think such sequences are POSSIBLE, and therefore such sequences are impossible; he arguing that THERE'S GOOD REASON to think that such sequences are IMPOSSIBLE, therefore such sequences are metaphysically impossible. It's NOT an argument from ignorance. If you think it is, spell it out.



          Says the guy who lectures me on what counts as a rebuttal.
          Where’s the bit that demonstrates how the premise for a metaphysical deductive argument can be verified as true. Because, as you know, a deductive argument is sound if and only if it is both valid, and all of its premises are actually true. Otherwise, a deductive argument is unsound.
          “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

          Comment


          • #35
            Originally posted by Tassman View Post
            Where’s the bit that demonstrates how the premise for a metaphysical deductive argument can be verified as true. Because, as you know, a deductive argument is sound if and only if it is both valid, and all of its premises are actually true. Otherwise, a deductive argument is unsound.

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            • #36
              Originally posted by Tassman View Post
              Where’s the bit that demonstrates how the premise for a metaphysical deductive argument can be verified as true. Because, as you know, a deductive argument is sound if and only if it is both valid, and all of its premises are actually true. Otherwise, a deductive argument is unsound.
              Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
              George Horne

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              • #37
                Originally posted by Tassman View Post
                Where’s the bit that demonstrates how the premise for a metaphysical deductive argument can be verified as true. Because, as you know, a deductive argument is sound if and only if it is both valid, and all of its premises are actually true. Otherwise, a deductive argument is unsound.
                Really Tass, that is your response to all that Matt explained? Aren't you embarrassed?
                Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

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                • #38
                  Originally posted by seer View Post
                  Really Tass, that is your response to all that Matt explained? Aren't you embarrassed?
                  Matt clearly should be embarrassed by his long rambling loosely connected sound bites, and ignoring the persistent question of the problem of the falsifiability of metaphysical arguments, and the consistent falsifiability of theories and hypothesis in science. Put together with a reasonable logical order all the sound bites put in their correct context of over all science represent a predictable coherent world view of our physical existence.
                  Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                  Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                  But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                  go with the flow the river knows . . .

                  Frank

                  I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

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                  • #39
                    Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                    Matt clearly should be embarrassed by his long rambling loosely connected sound bites, and ignoring the persistent question of the problem of the falsifiability of metaphysical arguments, and the consistent falsifiability of theories and hypothesis in science. Put together with a reasonable logical order all the sound bites put in their correct context of over all science represent a predictable coherent world view of our physical existence.
                    LOL, what a moron...
                    Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                    Comment


                    • #40
                      Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                      Matt clearly should be embarrassed by his long rambling loosely connected sound bites, and ignoring the persistent question of the problem of the falsifiability of metaphysical arguments, and the consistent falsifiability of theories and hypothesis in science. Put together with a reasonable logical order all the sound bites put in their correct context of over all science represent a predictable coherent world view of our physical existence.
                      Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
                      George Horne

                      Comment


                      • #41
                        Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                        Matt clearly should be embarrassed by his long rambling loosely connected sound bites, and ignoring the persistent question of the problem of the falsifiability of metaphysical arguments, and the consistent falsifiability of theories and hypothesis in science. Put together with a reasonable logical order all the sound bites put in their correct context of over all science represent a predictable coherent world view of our physical existence.
                        Exactly right! He's a verbose, obscurantist fraud. There is no way to establish the truth of premises for metaphysical arguments, hence no way to to show the conclusions of metaphysical arguments to be true. A deductive argument is sound if and only if it is both valid, and all of its premises are actually true. Otherwise, a deductive argument is unsound.
                        “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

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                        • #42
                          Originally posted by Tassman View Post
                          Exactly right! He's a verbose, obscurantist fraud. There is no way to establish the truth of premises for metaphysical arguments, hence no way to to show the conclusions of metaphysical arguments to be true. A deductive argument is sound if and only if it is both valid, and all of its premises are actually true. Otherwise, a deductive argument is unsound.
                          In other words, he's running circles around you and you're too stupid to realize.

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                          • #43
                            Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post
                            In other words, he's running circles around you and you're too stupid to realize.
                            Yea, I think it's over at this point. Tass Nye the Scientism Guy and Shunya-doggie have been demonstrably close-minded and thick. I think Christians on these boards can be pretty sure that absolutely nothing they say or argue is of any value at all.
                            Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
                            George Horne

                            Comment


                            • #44
                              Originally posted by mattbballman31 View Post
                              Yea, I think it's over at this point. Tass Nye the Scientism Guy and Shunya-doggie have been demonstrably close-minded and thick. I think Christians on these boards can be pretty sure that absolutely nothing they say or argue is of any value at all.
                              The point you are not addressing is that science has the methodology to verify its premises and hypotheses whereas metaphysics does not. To quote Wittgenstein: “There are no realms of phenomena whose study is the special business of a philosopher and about which he or she should devise profound a priori theories and sophisticated supporting arguments. There are no startling discoveries to be made of facts, not open to the methods of science, yet accessible "from the armchair" through some blend of intuition, pure reason and conceptual analysis. Indeed the whole idea of a subject that could yield such results is based on confusion and wishful thinking”.
                              “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

                              Comment


                              • #45
                                Originally posted by Tassman View Post
                                The point you are not addressing is that science has the methodology to verify its premises and hypotheses whereas metaphysics does not. To quote Wittgenstein: “There are no realms of phenomena whose study is the special business of a philosopher and about which he or she should devise profound a priori theories and sophisticated supporting arguments. There are no startling discoveries to be made of facts, not open to the methods of science, yet accessible "from the armchair" through some blend of intuition, pure reason and conceptual analysis. Indeed the whole idea of a subject that could yield such results is based on confusion and wishful thinking”.
                                Oh my good Lord Jesus. Please help Tass to see the light. This quotation tells me right here that you're so far out of your depth, that you just need to stop talking.

                                Tass, Tass, Tass, Tass, Tass. Are you familiar with the history of philosophy and metaphysics?

                                The problems that Wittgenstein raised are just not taken seriously anymore, my poor boy. You're so behind the times. He inaugurated logical positivism, which was trounced by Popper, Putnam, and Quine, and after that, started 'ordinary language philosophy', which almost no one pays attention to anymore, post Kripke, Plantinga, Searle, Lewis, Grice, Chisolm, et al. Wittgenstein is a great philosopher, man. Don't get me wrong. But philosophy and metaphysics progress.
                                Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
                                George Horne

                                Comment

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