Falsifiability

[robvalue]

Joseph: You're right. It's a point I should have covered in my video. There are some things that are unfalsifiable but are pragmatic to believe. A person who is interested in learning the truth should aim to make as few assumptions as possible. They should therefor only be assumptions that are crucial in some way. For example, the existence of God and the idea prayers are being answered are certainly not crucial. Obviously atheists can function perfectly well without them. My video was mainly addressing further scientific claims, once you've made some fundamental assumptions.

Life, and science, is probabilistic as Alex says. We decide our actions based on what we appear to have learned so far. Science isn't about proving things for certain, it's about coming to conclusions beyond reasonable doubt. So in this way, life itself is a running experiment.

I don't know if it's actually necessary to make any assumptions that aren't based on evidence, though. The biggest primary assumption is that what I experience maps to some sort of objective reality, which other independent intelligences also experience. However, I can function perfectly fine without making this assumption. I still have to remain in this experience whether it's "real" or not, so I'll be dealing with the consequences of my actions.