(May 28, 2020 at 5:18 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote: I’m asking you how it could/would be falsified (by what method), and how that falsification could be demonstrated.
Earlier, I assumed that the proposition could be falsified in the normal way: by finding a counterexample.
So if we found something that couldn't be explained by science, then we'd know that not everything can be explained by science.
Now I see that promissory naturalism doesn't accept the existence of things that can't be explained by science. So I see that the proposition can't be falsified.
There's a parallel to the example we were using in the thread about falsification. I gave the example of the Loch Ness monster. The statement, "no such monster exists" is falsifiable, because if you found the monster the statement would be falsified. But the statement "there is a monster" is not falsifiable because no matter how much we look and don't find a monster, True Believers can assert that we just haven't found it yet. (Obviously, the monster uses Jedi mind tricks like Alec Guiness in the first Star Wars. When the researchers find it, the monster waves its hand and says: "I am not the monster you're looking for.")
Likewise, we could line up a million questions unanswered by science, and the True Believers would say that we just haven't found the answer yet. But there absolutely has to be one. We just know it.
So I guess I changed my mind. The statement isn't falsifiable.
Personally, I accept the possibility that something inexplicable to science might exist. Obviously, value statements and metaphysical statements are of this type, and there may be others. Some of them may be fundamental to how nature works. I acknowledge this is speculation. But I have to hold open the possibility that I don't know everything.
