RE: Is the statement "Claims demand evidence" always true?
January 14, 2017 at 4:30 pm
(This post was last modified: January 14, 2017 at 4:38 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
We can't know anything about claims explicitly designed to be unknowable, but that doesn't make every claim designed to be so a worthwhile or valid claim. Even among the set of possible valid "unknowables", there are necessarrily a great many more possible unknowable claims than possible unknowable -true- claims.
That's why entertaining whatever falls out of someones head is not the rigorous approach to claims that the claimants always demand for their thought droppings. There is no requirement to do so, and failure or refusal to do so does not, logically, justify skepticism towards any contradictory claim the proposer of the "unknowable" wishes to object.....whose validity and soundness can at least be assessed...even if that claim may be, ultimately, untrue.
It amounts to nothing other than "What if you;re wrong" "What if you don't know something". Well no shit, what if I am, that's why we have standards.....as to the latter...there is no requirement of full knowledge to consider a claim to be true, any demand - even in implication, for complete knowledge, is an illogical demand.
As to the specific example, the "what if we're in the matrix" objection is a non-objection. It is, firstly, not a worthwhile claim in a vacuum. Sewcondly, it does not alter or invalidate any claim we make about our evironment simply by virtue of being claimed...or even by virtue of being true. I am Khemikal. I am Khemikal regardless of whether I live in the universe we know, or in the matrix. Water is wet. Water is wet regardless of whether we live in the universe we know, or in the matrix.
That's why entertaining whatever falls out of someones head is not the rigorous approach to claims that the claimants always demand for their thought droppings. There is no requirement to do so, and failure or refusal to do so does not, logically, justify skepticism towards any contradictory claim the proposer of the "unknowable" wishes to object.....whose validity and soundness can at least be assessed...even if that claim may be, ultimately, untrue.
It amounts to nothing other than "What if you;re wrong" "What if you don't know something". Well no shit, what if I am, that's why we have standards.....as to the latter...there is no requirement of full knowledge to consider a claim to be true, any demand - even in implication, for complete knowledge, is an illogical demand.
As to the specific example, the "what if we're in the matrix" objection is a non-objection. It is, firstly, not a worthwhile claim in a vacuum. Sewcondly, it does not alter or invalidate any claim we make about our evironment simply by virtue of being claimed...or even by virtue of being true. I am Khemikal. I am Khemikal regardless of whether I live in the universe we know, or in the matrix. Water is wet. Water is wet regardless of whether we live in the universe we know, or in the matrix.
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