No reason justifies disbelief.

[bennyboy]

If no amount of evidence can establish the existence of y, then nothing establishes the existence of y.  You're begging the same question with a different vernacular.  Just like the metaphysical, and for the same reasons...the "immaterial" may be an empty set.

Produce at least a single example of anything that is immaterial or metaphysical?  Good luck, given the handicaps you've set for yourself.

I don't need to do that.  All I have to do is ask an honest philosophical question: Why does anything exist?

I don't know the answer, and neither does anyone else.  I believe the evidence is against science being able to answer this question, since none of the questions science has answered have been of the same type.

[The Grand Nudger]

Yes, Benny, you do..lol.  Asking why anything exists doesn't demonstrate that the answer to the question is immaterial or metaphysical, that either is a set that contains anything, let alone the answer to that question.

Your beliefs amount to jack shit. What evidence could you possibly be referring to, and what invocation of evidence can you make that isn't explicitly empirical?

[The Valkyrie]

Punctuation is so important.

No, reason justifies disbelief.

See, makes so much more sense.

[bennyboy]

Yes, Benny, you do..lol.  Asking why anything exists doesn't demonstrate that the answer to the question is immaterial or metaphysical, that either is a set that contains anything, let alone the answer to that question.

Your beliefs amount to jack shit.

My beliefs?

I think you need to go back a page or two to see what I was talking about.  LadyForCamus asked how someone would determine what questions science can't answer.  I wasn't asserting a belief-- except maybe that there's no evidence that science is the right tool for answering certain kinds of questions.

It's much like the agnostic atheist position: "I don't need to prove there aren't any gods.  You've shown no evidence that there are, but if you can, I reserve the right to change my mind."

I will say the exact same thing: "I don't need to prove that science can't answer certain types of questions.  You've shown no evidence that it can, but if you can, I reserve the right to change my mind."  So go ahead-- break through the Universe, show how the Cosmic Foam creates Universes like ours-- and I will happily change my mind.  Until then-- meh.

[The Grand Nudger]

You're out of your gourd.  Empirical physics answers why questions with regularity.   Why does a ball roll downhill?  

The trouble with both metaphysics and immaterial whatsists is that they are incapable of providing any demonstration of their own basic validity even on their own terms.  This is a known known and a problem for metaphysics and the immaterial that no one has been able to resolve thusfar.  The minute you start using words like "evidence" you begin to explicitly invoke empiricism and physics.

If you wish to assert that there are clearly metaphysical questions and answers..or immaterial questions and answers...you must at least demonstrate that that there is at least one thing in either set. Empiricism and physics have satisfied this very basic necessity. The agnostic atheist position is...explicitly, a position derived from empiricism and physics. If you wish to contend that some acceptance of metaphysics and immaterialism are "like that" in any menaingful way...then you are tacitly admitting that the two things are misnomers for regular old physics...and empiricism.

It has never ceased to amaze me how people fail to realize how incredibly high stakes this practiced avoidance of any responsibility of demonstration or means of demonstraton is. In the absence of any clear dilineation between meatphysics and physics, betrn empiricism and non-empirical whatsits,....physics and empiricism stomp the living shit out of the competition. Reducing them to non entities on their own grounds

[bennyboy]

You're out of your gourd.  Empirical physics answers why questions with regularity.   Why does a ball roll downhill?  

100% of questions science has answered are those which can be answered with observations made about entities and events within the space-time framework.  0% of the questions science has answered are about why such a framework exists rather than not.

I'm making no assertion right now except that science has not been demonstrated to be able to answer the question of cosmogony. I assert this because science is about observations, and I know that observation is limited to entities and events in space-time, and space-time isn't IN space-time any more than my house is in my house.

You will argue, no doubt, that science has answered gazillions of questions, but "hasn't answered this particular one YET."  I will argue that those gazillions of questions are unlike this one, and that none of them stand as credible evidence that science can answer it.

[The Grand Nudger]

You're out of your gourd.  Empirical physics answers why questions with regularity.   Why does a ball roll downhill?  

100% of questions science has answered are those which can be answered with observations made about entities and events within the space-time framework.  0% of the questions science has answered are about why such a framework exists rather than not.

Out of your gourd, again...but lets just pretend that this were true, so what?  Its an argument from ignorance.  It doesn't establish that there are metaphysical this or that's or immaterial this or that's, or even that science couldn;t answer some question.....simply asserts that "like, science doesn't know some stuff, man"

-and....?

I'm making no assertion right now except that science has not been demonstrated to be able to answer the question of cosmogony.  I assert this because science is about observations, and I know that observation is limited to entities and events in space-time, and space-time isn't IN space-time any more than my house is in my house.

You have made previous assertions that there are clearly metaphysical questions..but have failed to present a single example of anything that belongs n the metaphysical set.  You assert that science has no provided evidence..an explicitly empirical assertion, that it can't answer "some types of questions"... can't...not hasn't, or hasn't yet. Can't....though, ofc, science does and has answered the types of questions you then invoked.

You will argue, no doubt, that science has answered gazillions of questions, but "hasn't answered this particular one YET."  I will argue that those gazillions of questions are unlike this one, and that none of them stand as credible evidence that science can answer it.

Nobody cares about a yet.  Present a single example of a question unlike the questions it -has- answered.  Why questions have been addressed and can be answered, even -if- some haven't been, yet...and even if some of them never are.   



This is the usual nonsense. A fundamantal misunderstanding of empiricism and how that relates to the -method- of empirical investigation we call science, combined with an inability to present a single example of the metaphysical or immaterial. "Prove all the things!". Lazy, and beneath wrong. It comes as no suprise to anyone that science doesn't have answers for everything, it won;t surprise anytone if it never does. This isn't a simple comment on the ability or applicability of the method...because the user has to be fortuitously placed in order to use it to it's fullest extent. Thing is, no amount of attacking what science doesn;t know or what a given user can;t figure out from their vantage point will demonstrate those things important to the immaterial or the metaphysical.

Science not knowing things, or not answering questions, does not make the metaphysical or immaterial credible by default. That's not how that works.

[bennyboy]

100% of questions science has answered are those which can be answered with observations made about entities and events within the space-time framework.  0% of the questions science has answered are about why such a framework exists rather than not.

Out of your gourd, again...but lets just pretend that this were true, so what?  Its an argument from ignorance.  It doesn't establish that there are metaphysical this or that's or immaterial this or that's, or even that science couldn;t answer some question.....simply asserts that "like, science doesn't know some stuff, man"

-and....?

Who's trying to establish anything metaphysical? I'm saying that there are some questions science can't answer. My assertion is a logical one: science is based on observation of things IN the space-time framework. The space-time framework is not in the space-time framework, and cannot be observed in that way.

If you want to assert that science CAN answer the question of cosmogony, then you'll have to demonstrate that observations aren't intrinsically and irresolvably limited in a way that prevents us studying their parent framework. If you can't do that, then science BY DEFINITION is not the right tool for studying cosmogony.

[The Grand Nudger]

Out of your gourd, again...but lets just pretend that this were true, so what?  Its an argument from ignorance.  It doesn't establish that there are metaphysical this or that's or immaterial this or that's, or even that science couldn;t answer some question.....simply asserts that "like, science doesn't know some stuff, man"

-and....?

Who's trying to establish anything metaphysical?  I'm saying that there are some questions science can't answer.

How would you know that?  I'll wait.

My assertion is a logical one: science is based on observation of things IN the space-time framework.  The space-time framework is not in the space-time framework, and cannot be observed in that way.

No, it isn't.  That -where- we do science, not what science is based on. Science is based on strictly regimented empirical observation. Not a place of observation. A being "outside of the framework", to borrow the religious nutters favorite fantasy, could do science.

If you want to assert that science CAN answer the question of cosmogony, then you'll have to demonstrate that observations aren't intrinsically and irresolvably limited in a way that prevents us studying their parent framework.  If you can't do that, then science BY DEFINITION is not the right tool for studying cosmogony.

Preventing -us- and preventing empirical study are not equivalent.  Tada.

Meanwhile, you have yet to present a single example of your claimed "clearly metaphysical" whatsits. It remains an empty set, even as science answers the kind of questions you hilariously assert that it's incapable of addressing, based on who knows how you would know that. Did you intuit it, or something?

Here I just have to put my foot down and straight up say that you;r talking out of your ass. Cosmogony -is- a branch of science, and it's been answering our questions in that regard better than anything else we've ever devised.

Out..of your gourd.

[bennyboy]

That -where- we do science, not what science is based on.  Science is based on strictly regimented empirical observation.  Not a place of observation.  A being "outside of the framework", to borrow the religious nutters favorite fantasy, could do science.

That's fine. Let's specify-- I'm talking about human science, not the science of magical space monkeys in another dimension.

Preventing -us- and preventing empirical study are not equivalent.  Tada.

Okay?

If Zoltan from the 5th Foam wants to come and tell us how the Universe was made, then:
1) I will change my mind about science and its capabilities.
2) All hail Zoltan! Oh Zoltan, won't you please by me a new Mercedes Benz?

Until then, I'm going to stick to science as a human activity, with its actual limitations in making material observations from inside the Universe.

Meanwhile, you have yet to present a single example of your claimed "clearly metaphysical" whatsits.  It remains an empty set, even as science answers the kind of questions you hilariously assert that it's incapable of addressing, based on who knows how you would know that.  Did you intuit it, or something?

Science does not, in fact, answer the questions I claim it's incapable of addressing. If it does, then this thread can end with a link. Go ahead and provide it.