(May 13, 2016 at 3:38 am)robvalue Wrote: There's nothing logically absurd about infinities, or infinite regress. In fact, they're incredibly simple.
It may or may not be the case that any such phenomena exists in reality. Trying to say it can't happen because you can't imagine how it can happen doesn't demonstrate anything. Asking someone else to prove it can happen doesn't demonstrate it can't happen.
I think that it comes down to the question, do we have good reasons to believe that a actual infinity or infinite regress cannot exist..... I think we do. The question then becomes is there reasons to believe that they do. If new information becomes available then this is subject to change.
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I would say you literally can't demonstrate these things can't happen. Which is why science does not go around trying to disprove pointless unfalsifiable claims. Science doesn't need to battle religion, or any other kind of woo. Hiding behind the argument from ignorance just shows you have nothing.
I've shown my video about a hundred times now, but some people don't seem to get it. If you have no evidence, you're relying on your premises being 100% accurate and exhaustive. That is an impossible task to demonstrate, I would say. "Close enough" is not good enough. "Probably true, according to me" isn't good enough. You're simply speculating about a theoretical world in which those things are universally true, and for which no other facts interfere with the conclusion. And that's if the arguments even work, which most often they don't.
This is why science brings testing in after a hypothesis has been formed, not as part of speculative, extrapolated premises from which to draw conclusions. No one bases their belief on this bullshit. Well, I hope they don't. This is all rationalisation to make the believer feel more comfortable about beliefs they already have. And it doesn't work on non believers, because they don't need it to work, and so can examine it objectively and see the gaping problems with it.
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You seem to be describing inductive reasoning. I would point out, as you are arguing against it, that the cosmology that has been discussed here in this thread is largely theoretical. And evolution which has been discussed, is largely inductive and relying on the premises and assumptions to be true. Even the testing in science that you reference makes assumptions, such that what was true before will be true again. That science will not all of the sudden change on them.