(May 4, 2017 at 8:08 am)alpha male Wrote:

(May 3, 2017 at 5:23 pm)Grandizer Wrote: The content in the letters, inscriptions, records, and such may be anecdotes (testimonials), yes. But this isn't to say that such objects cannot be scientific evidence as well. It depends on the scientific hypothesis/theory at hand and what the hypothesis/theory predicts.

For example: if some scientific theory says that one should expect to see certain fossils in these layers here rather than in the layers over there, then the fossil record would constitute scientific evidence if these certain fossils do happen to be found in these layers and not in other layers.

Sure, but that's not what happens in any meaningful way. Fossils are found and then fitted as best they can into the existing record.

Tiktaalik was an attempt at actually making a prediction, but in the end it was wrong.

Depends on what prediction you're talking about exactly. As far as evolution and speciation goes (broadly), it was a successful prediction. If you're referring to some other theory, then maybe the prediction it did propose ended up being wrong, but you need to specify what you're referring to so I know what to say in response.

(May 4, 2017 at 8:57 am)Grandizer Wrote:

(May 4, 2017 at 8:08 am)alpha male Wrote: Sure, but that's not what happens in any meaningful way. Fossils are found and then fitted as best they can into the existing record.

Tiktaalik was an attempt at actually making a prediction, but in the end it was wrong.

Depends on what prediction you're talking about exactly. As far as evolution and speciation goes (broadly), it was a successful prediction. If you're referring to some other theory, then maybe the prediction it did propose ended up being wrong, but you need to specify what you're referring to so I know what to say in response.

A prediction was made that a certain type of fossil (lobe-finned fish with characteristics that could be useful for transition to land) would be found in a certain place, that place being based on habitat (shallow water) and age (before first tetrapod). 

But, after it was found, tetrapod fossils were found which were 10 million years older.

(May 4, 2017 at 2:49 pm)alpha male Wrote:

(May 4, 2017 at 8:57 am)Grandizer Wrote: Depends on what prediction you're talking about exactly. As far as evolution and speciation goes (broadly), it was a successful prediction. If you're referring to some other theory, then maybe the prediction it did propose ended up being wrong, but you need to specify what you're referring to so I know what to say in response.

A prediction was made that a certain type of fossil (lobe-finned fish with characteristics that could be useful for transition to land) would be found in a certain place, that place being based on habitat (shallow water) and age (before first tetrapod). 

But, after it was found, tetrapod fossils were found which were 10 million years older.

Suppose this is so (I will do some Google search on this later to confirm), then the prediction is falsified and theory is adjusted accordingly to fit the counter-evidence. Beauty of science.

@ Grandizer

Noumena=things in themselves.

I'm saying that time travel, for instance, is impossible because the future doesn't exist yet and the past no longer exists. There's nowhere else to travel.

If science says time travel is possible then it's not actually talking about time as we normally understand it. So it's not like a time machine that could actually travel to the past or future could exist. Space-time says time and space are one thing... therefore travelling past the speed of light would be to 'travel through time'...

People who believe time travel is possible are equivocating just like the Eternalists are.

So, anyways, if we ever got on a spaceship that travelled faster than light then by science's definition of time as space-time we would be travelling 'through time'.... however that would just be travelling faster than light and labelling that 'time travel'... it wouldn't actually be reaching a future that doesn't exist yet (which is impossible by definition).

With faster-than-light travel it would mean that we could travel somewhere faster than we could experience our own perception of it. It wouldn't mean we could travel somewhere faster than it itself even existed.

It would mean that we could physically arrive somewhere before our eyes could even see it and therefore in theory we could 'see it' before we saw it. Therefore we could 'see the future'--but only if our eyes could see faster than light.

But of course even if we could see faster than light... we wouldn't actually be seeing the future we would be seeing our own perceptions of something before we could normally see such a thing. Our normal perceptions being what we normally call 'the present'. But as soon as we could see past that then that would become the new present. Because the present is by definition whatever is present, even if it's experiencing our own experiences of things more quickly than we normally do.

It's the same as how when we look at the night sky and we see distant stars we are supposedly seeing the past... seeing how the stars were rather than how they are.

Once again: This is not possible. It's us seeing our own perception of the past, not the past itself. The past itself has by definition already gone.

Doesn't matter how powerful telescopes science has for astronomy, or microscopes for quantum mechanics, or what mathematics and theories are based on that -- science can only test our own observations of reality and not reality itself.

I agree yes the noumena can never be found and is impossible to find. That is my whole point. Hence why science can never test real time or real reality.

Now... to say that the noumenal world doesn't exist.... that's saying that nothing exists outside our own observations or the observations of science... that would be to say if no living beings with consciousness existed then reality would not exist...

...despise the noumenal not existing I think we will both agree that the idea of it not existing is absurd. Like reality would just disappear if we were not there to experience it.

Of course the noumena exists--real reality exists--objective reality exists... objective time exists.... objective space exists... outside our observations and perception. But no, science cannot test that. No one can reach it ever. It's impossible in principle. If it was reachable it would no longer be the noumenal world! It would no longer be objective reality! If objective reality really exists as we believe it does then it has to exist apart from subjective reality. It would have to be of a nature where it still exists if all subjects become extinct.

Science can't test whether reality would still exist if no one existed because they'd have to stop existing to test that... and once they stopped existing they wouldn't be able to test it.

Anyways.... what science is saying is that the way we think we perceive time is not how we actually perceive time. It's saying we're deluded about our own perceptions... it's not telling us what is beyond our perceptions.

We can't see ultraviolet and yet science can still find evidence that it exists... does this mean that scientists can test ultraviolet without using their perceptions? No... science uses their perceptions to discover ultraviolet indirectly. Scientists can't perceive ultraviolet but they can't discover evidence of ultraviolet without perceiving that evidence, yes?

Even when abstract arguments and theories are made... those abstract arguments and theories have to be based on emprical observations for it to still be science and not philosophy or logic, yes?

But I doubt any of this will get through to you because you say you dislike analogies because they're biased in favor of the argument being made. Well, duh--of course! That's how they work... by being in favor of an argument in order to illustrate it. That's not really a bias when it's a strong and accurate analogy that vividly illustrates a strong and accurate argument.

Analogies are only a problem when they're strawmen or when they don't illustrate the argument accurately.

It's just a way for you to sidestep the argument I'm making.

I don't know what's so hard to understand about the fact that it's impossible to experience reality apart from our own experiences of it and therefore science can't test time itself or anything else in-itself and so science has theories about the subjective reality we experience rather than objective reality.

(May 4, 2017 at 2:49 pm)alpha male Wrote:

(May 4, 2017 at 8:57 am)Grandizer Wrote: Depends on what prediction you're talking about exactly. As far as evolution and speciation goes (broadly), it was a successful prediction. If you're referring to some other theory, then maybe the prediction it did propose ended up being wrong, but you need to specify what you're referring to so I know what to say in response.

A prediction was made that a certain type of fossil (lobe-finned fish with characteristics that could be useful for transition to land) would be found in a certain place, that place being based on habitat (shallow water) and age (before first tetrapod). 

But, after it was found, tetrapod fossils were found which were 10 million years older.

What does any of this have to do with the fact that there is no such thing as a magic baby with super powers?

Tetrapod fossils don't prove the existence of Allah or Vishnu either.

Neo-Scholastic Wrote:All of history is constructed from anecdotes. That includes paleontology too. The fossil record is just a pile of physical anecdotes.

Stupidest thing I have read all week, and it's been one of those weeks.

---

Neo-Scholastic Wrote:

Grandizer Wrote:I can't make sense of what you mean by "physical anecdotes". There are interpretations of the fossil record, yes. There are also expectations of what the fossil record should contain, along with the arrangements and such, based on current scientific theories.

When some skeptics use the term anecdote usually they do so as a way to dismiss personal statements about that do not fit in with how they think the world 'should' work.  Except 90% of what history is made of is anecdotes - letters, inscriptions, records, artifacts, etc.  For example, if I think my ancestors came from Reading, England to Wheaton, Illinois sometime around the turn of the century, then I would expect to find them listed in the census around that time. And lo and behold, I did find them. Theory confirmed.

My point is that anything that happened in the past is a reconstruction. We cannot go back and run experiments in the past. Evolution and geology are basically history. You cannot run an experiment about speciation any more than you can for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. All you can do is see if new information fits together with what is already known.

And since reconstructions can't be perfect, they are all equally reliable, so we should trust your scriptures just as much as we trust anything else about the past. Of course, that means we should also trust everyone else's scriptures equally with yours, except not, because reasons.

If only there was a method that would allow us to determine which reconstructions of the past have a higher probability of being better approximations of what really happened than others....

(May 5, 2017 at 9:26 am)Mister Agenda Wrote:

Neo-Scholastic Wrote:All of history is constructed from anecdotes. That includes paleontology too. The fossil record is just a pile of physical anecdotes.

Stupidest thing I have read all week, and it's been one of those weeks...And since reconstructions can't be perfect, they are all equally reliable, so we should trust your scriptures just as much as we trust anything else about the past. Of course, that means we should also trust everyone else's scriptures equally with yours, except not, because reasons...If only there was a method that would allow us to determine which reconstructions of the past have a higher probability of being better approximations of what really happened than others....

What you are saying is that when there are rival theories none of them are true. Or in other words, since we cannot be certain about everything we don't know anything. Talk about fallacies. I seriously question your logical judgment.

(May 5, 2017 at 10:14 am)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:

(May 5, 2017 at 9:26 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: Stupidest thing I have read all week, and it's been one of those weeks...And since reconstructions can't be perfect, they are all equally reliable, so we should trust your scriptures just as much as we trust anything else about the past. Of course, that means we should also trust everyone else's scriptures equally with yours, except not, because reasons...If only there was a method that would allow us to determine which reconstructions of the past have a higher probability of being better approximations of what really happened than others....

What you are saying is that when there are rival theories none of them are true. Or in other words, since we cannot be certain about everything we don't know anything. Talk about fallacies. I seriously question your logical judgment.

When scientists have competing theories, they settle those disputes in a lab and hand their theories over for independent peer review. Religion is simply pulling shit out of your ass and patting each other on the back.

You keep doing this. When you cant prop up your old book of myth, you try to claim science points to your book of myth. Then when you cant get away with that you say "see science doesn't know everything".

And you still refuse to see that there is not one religion in the world that does not have followers that pull these same tactics.

(May 5, 2017 at 7:59 am)Alasdair Ham Wrote: Noumena=things in themselves.

Independent of even logical arguments based on what is observed? Since definitions don't always translate to reality, how can one know the "noumenal present" (in the sense you speak of) actually does exist? Suppose that what we have is a "noumenal timelessness" rather than "noumenal time", can we still speak of a real "noumenal present" in this case?

Quote:I'm saying that time travel, for instance, is impossible because the future doesn't exist yet and the past no longer exists. There's nowhere else to travel.

If science says time travel is possible then it's not actually talking about time as we normally understand it. So it's not like a time machine that could actually travel to the past or future could exist. Space-time says time and space are one thing... therefore travelling past the speed of light would be to 'travel through time'...

People who believe time travel is possible are equivocating just like the Eternalists are.

What is time "as we normally understand it"? I don't think you can know how others normally understand time. At least not without reliable and valid surveys.

And should how people normally view a concept necessitate this view to reflect the noumenology of the thing to which the concept refers? I'm pretty sure this is not at all what you're saying, but sometimes your wording does suggest this. What if people have always normally viewed time as a coordinate, t, of space rather than something that flows in a certain direction?

Perhaps the issue isn't that Eternalists are equivocating, but rather they're not concerned about the noumenal world that you speak of? I know I don't care that much about some unknowable and possibly nonexistent "noumenal time". As far as I'm concerned, I can only observe, and clearly, the phenomenological world, and so when I think of time, I normally think of it phenomenologically, and I suspect most people do as well. I only think of time noumenologically when I'm in my active philosophy mode. But even then, I see it differently from you.

I should also repeat that you are the first person I have encountered who argues for Presentism the way that you do (noumenology vs. phenomenology). And I have read quite a number of articles on the philosophy of time (because, believe it or not, it does interest me very much). William Lane Craig, I believe, is phenomenologically a Presentist judging by his rejection of mainstream Einsteinian Relativity.

Quote:So, anyways, if we ever got on a spaceship that travelled faster than light then by science's definition of time as space-time we would be travelling 'through time'.... however that would just be travelling faster than light and labelling that 'time travel'... it wouldn't actually be reaching a future that doesn't exist yet (which is impossible by definition).

This is correct if we are to go precisely with the definitions you are going by, but let's remember that definitions are formulated by us human beings. We, as a collective whole, decide how we should define words like "past" and "future". And we, in a sense, collectively determine how we intuit these concepts.

Quote:With faster-than-light travel it would mean that we could travel somewhere faster than we could experience our own perception of it. It wouldn't mean we could travel somewhere faster than it itself even existed.

It would mean that we could physically arrive somewhere before our eyes could even see it and therefore in theory we could 'see it' before we saw it. Therefore we could 'see the future'--but only if our eyes could see faster than light.

But of course even if we could see faster than light... we wouldn't actually be seeing the future we would be seeing our own perceptions of something before we could normally see such a thing. Our normal perceptions being what we normally call 'the present'. But as soon as we could see past that then that would become the new present. Because the present is by definition whatever is present, even if it's experiencing our own experiences of things more quickly than we normally do.

It's the same as how when we look at the night sky and we see distant stars we are supposedly seeing the past... seeing how the stars were rather than how they are.

Once again: This is not possible. It's us seeing our own perception of the past, not the past itself. The past itself has by definition already gone.

Sure, I have never disputed any of what you're saying here. But when you say "by definition", you are going by what the dictionaries generally say, right? Again, human beings themselves have written these dictionaries. In another possible world, dictionaries generally define "future" as that which "present spatially connects to in the forward direction", and "past" as that which "present spatially connects to in the past direction".

Quote:Doesn't matter how powerful telescopes science has for astronomy, or microscopes for quantum mechanics, or what mathematics and theories are based on that -- science can only test our own observations of reality and not reality itself.

Key word here is "test". But science, as you know, is more than just testing. Theories are formulated in an attempt to explain and predict not only what can be observed (i.e., phenomenology) but also what can be derived using logical arguments presuming the truth of these observations (i.e., noumenology). There is nothing to suggest that a posteriori arguments cannot logically lead to the truth of certain aspects about the noumenal world.

Quote:I agree yes the noumena can never be found and is impossible to find. That is my whole point. Hence why science can never test real time or real reality.

Then should we still suppose the existence of an actual noumenal time? For all we know, the whole noumenal reality may be static and timeless "from the outside".

Quote:Now... to say that the noumenal world doesn't exist.... that's saying that nothing exists outside our own observations or the observations of science... that would be to say if no living beings with consciousness existed then reality would not exist...

...despise the noumenal not existing I think we will both agree that the idea of it not existing is absurd. Like reality would just disappear if we were not there to experience it.

Agreed. A noumenal reality not existing is absurd. This does not mean, however, that proposed noumenal aspects of it must necessarily exist.

Quote:Of course the noumena exists--real reality exists--objective reality exists... objective time exists.... objective space exists... outside our observations and perception. But no, science cannot test that. No one can reach it ever. It's impossible in principle. If it was reachable it would no longer be the noumenal world! It would no longer be objective reality! If objective reality really exists as we believe it does then it has to exist apart from subjective reality. It would have to be of a nature where it still exists if all subjects become extinct.

I don't know how you define "time" exactly, but if time necessarily must flow (which is how I think you are looking at this), then it is possible for "objective time" to not exist. But if you are fine with noumenal time being a coordinate of 4D space (or whatever the structure of the reality happens to be), then sure, objective time does exist. It all depends on what your conception of time is.

Quote:Science can't test whether reality would still exist if no one existed because they'd have to stop existing to test that... and once they stopped existing they wouldn't be able to test it.

And that's why scientists need to be good with logic as well.

Quote:Anyways.... what science is saying is that the way we think we perceive time is not how we actually perceive time. It's saying we're deluded about our own perceptions... it's not telling us what is beyond our perceptions.

I don't know if I would put it this way. Quite a number of cosmologists and physicists seem confident about the mainstream science-based conception of time as reflecting objective time.

Quote:We can't see ultraviolet and yet science can still find evidence that it exists... does this mean that scientists can test ultraviolet without using their perceptions? No... science uses their perceptions to discover ultraviolet indirectly. Scientists can't perceive ultraviolet but they can't discover evidence of ultraviolet without perceiving that evidence, yes?

Um, that's what I've been basically saying the whole time. So one can, through science, indirectly conclude the truth of certain aspects of the noumenal world, right?

Quote:Even when abstract arguments and theories are made... those abstract arguments and theories have to be based on emprical observations for it to still be science and not philosophy or logic, yes?

Why can't we call it both science and philosophy/logic?

Quote:But I doubt any of this will get through to you because you say you dislike analogies because they're biased in favor of the argument being made. Well, duh--of course! That's how they work... by being in favor of an argument in order to illustrate it. That's not really a bias when it's a strong and accurate analogy that vividly illustrates a strong and accurate argument.

Analogies are only a problem when they're strawmen or when they don't illustrate the argument accurately.

It's just a way for you to sidestep the argument I'm making.

By all means, use analogies to illustrate your points if you must. It's just that analogies, like the one you borrowed from Sam Harris, often fail to consider what the other side is actually thinking.

Quote:I don't know what's so hard to understand about the fact that it's impossible to experience reality apart from our own experiences of it and therefore science can't test time itself or anything else in-itself and so science has theories about the subjective reality we experience rather than objective reality.

Yes, it's impossible to experience reality apart from our own experiences of it.

Yes, science can't directly test noumenal time itself.

No, science can have theories about the objective reality that we subjectively experience. I think it is getting clearer on where we disagree.

(May 5, 2017 at 10:38 am)Brian37 Wrote: When scientists have competing theories, they settle those disputes in a lab...

I have never heard of anyone digging up a new fossil in a lab, have you?