(June 2, 2020 at 1:22 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: The five minute old universe is thoroughly silly. Suppose it was five minutes old..but for whatever reason and however it came to be this way...it appeared to all the world and had every detail in common with a much older universe.
The setup is claiming that no relevant fact which informs the conclusion of old age is false, and then quixotically asking us to consider that the conclusion is..nevertheless..false. Fine...but we're being asked to prove something when, if this could be the case, nothing could be proven.
It asks us to consider the possibility that even when we're in the possession of sound and true premises, and we use those premises in a valid form, we still couldn't trust the conclusion. A complete retreat into irrationalism cannot make demands of rational processes, because it does not believe in rational processes, or..indeed...so much as a rationally intelligible universe.
The unreliability of a rational process to reach true conclusions in an irrational universe is uninformative, and would be expected. Rationally speaking, ofc, but since we've dispensed with all reason.......
I'd even say that the notion is far more harmful to god beliefs than anything else, particularly when the believer thinks that all evidence points to some fairy.
What, all of the evidence that could have been manufactured five minutes ago and whose conclusions still would not be true even if every detail were?
It is as valuable and un-falsifiable as last thursdayism, solipsism, or brain in a vat, Matrix style simulation theory.
Me, I start with reality is real as a basic belief then proceed from there. I am agnostic about most things; it is the most intellectually honest way to hold ones mind.
I'm genuinely dissapointed with our new theist. At first he took umbrage with name calling but has resorted to the very act that he appeared to abhor.
Two tears in a bucket; mother fuck it.
