1. And the evidence for these causal relationships is... what? There is none, Rhythm. Again, as I said, "What we have evidence for, and lots of it, is correlation." All of these examples you cite are evidence of A occurring in correlation to B (e.g., head injury and amnesia). You are attempting to conclude a causal relationship from this, which commits the aforementioned fallacy: A occurs in correlation to B, therefore A causes B.
2. You asked me what I think is going on, whether observation or something else. I already answered that question: the observation of A occurring in correlation to B. "It is the correlation that is observed empirically, while the causal relationship is inferred inductively." The problem for you is that your inference is drawn fallaciously. The question of evidence is "how science is done," you said. So provide evidence for your position, Rhythm—not of A occurring in correlation to B, but of A causing B.
3. There are any number of things that philosophy is not the appropriate tool for, but all of our tools—including science—presuppose a philosophical conclusion. Whether it is something as fundamental as assuming the uniformity of nature or as mundane as filing your taxes, it all presupposes a series of philosophical conclusions. Without philosophy, science is meaningless.
4. You said that "a great many things exist that we have not yet discovered." Such as?
"All truth passes through three stages. In the first, it is ridiculed. In the second, it is violently opposed. In the third, it is regarded as self-evident." (Arthur Schopenhauer)
2. You asked me what I think is going on, whether observation or something else. I already answered that question: the observation of A occurring in correlation to B. "It is the correlation that is observed empirically, while the causal relationship is inferred inductively." The problem for you is that your inference is drawn fallaciously. The question of evidence is "how science is done," you said. So provide evidence for your position, Rhythm—not of A occurring in correlation to B, but of A causing B.
3. There are any number of things that philosophy is not the appropriate tool for, but all of our tools—including science—presuppose a philosophical conclusion. Whether it is something as fundamental as assuming the uniformity of nature or as mundane as filing your taxes, it all presupposes a series of philosophical conclusions. Without philosophy, science is meaningless.
4. You said that "a great many things exist that we have not yet discovered." Such as?
(September 10, 2011 at 3:17 pm)Fred Wrote: Our understanding of what is 'natural' expands. A description what was going on at the quantum level would have been seen as absolute batshit crazy supernatural bullshit if someone had been spouting it 50 years before its discovery. Now, well, naturally, that's the way things operate.
"All truth passes through three stages. In the first, it is ridiculed. In the second, it is violently opposed. In the third, it is regarded as self-evident." (Arthur Schopenhauer)
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when
called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
(Oscar Wilde)
called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
(Oscar Wilde)
