standard of evidence

[Faith No More]

I apologize that I missed your comment. I've been flooded with plenty and it's hard to keep track and reply to everyone.

No problem. And I apologize for the broken link. I had to board an airplane at the moment I made that post, and I didn't get a chance to check it over.

this seems to be well thought out, but I don't intend on relying on purely metaphysical reasoning. I may use the concept of possible worlds to help with a deductive argument, but I also rely on empirical evidence supported in the premises. as for metaphysical answers, I disagree. there may be problems that demand metaphysical answers. there may be an occurrence impossible to explain using the universe alone and thus we need to postulate something metaphysical outside the universe to answer the problem. I know i'm not really being too revealing of what i'm referring to but i'm not comfortable straying off topic on a huge tangent so i'm not bringing up specific arguments.

Except the problem is that once we attempt to draw metaphysical conclusions, we can never know the validity of those conclusions due to the fact that we cannot know that our knowledge and understanding that is based upon empirical observations can extend beyond what we can empirically observe. Thus, any metaphysical conclusion is just pure speculation at best and doesn't really lead us to any conclusive truth.

well I kind of disagree with this as well. we can certainly postulate certain conditions outside of space and time. for example, a material object could not exist outside space and time due to the fact that it requires space as a property of itself being that it's made of matter.

But you're basing this on your observations within space and time, and you simply can't conclude on that basis how things are outside of space and time. That is why these types of conclusions can't lead us anywhere.

conclusions people draw from evidence are often based on their own biases and thus are not rational. I think giving every proposition an equal burden of proof is essential to removing biases from our conclusions. math is pretty standard. there's almost no dispute among mathematicians on how to do math. why? because no one really invests emotional attachment in that subject, so they don't have biases to throw them off. logic should be the same. putting emotion in logic only leads to fallacies, the two don't mix when making rational claims.

Well, we are human beings, which means any conclusion we draw will be marred by a whole host of biases and emotions. The most we can hope for is to limit the effect of these biases and emotions as much as possible. That is where logic does come into play, but the problem is the human brain. Studies have shown that much of our beliefs are preconceived, and our minds interpret the evidence to fit those beliefs. We're not really the rational beings we perceive ourselves to be.

true, and that's where solipsism comes from. but putting that epistemological belief aside, it is important to be aware of certain filters concerning your perception. that's why it's always good to cross examine claims with other people. other people may perceive something you didn't that can shape your conclusions.

Right, cross examining your claims with others is one way of attempting to weed out bias and emotion, like I had mentioned above.

I agree that for different individuals, the manner of interpreting evidence will vary between individuals. but I still think the standard of evidence should be solid. if there is more evidence for a proposition than its negation, it's rational to believe that proposition. you may later realize the evidence for that proposition was false, or misinterpreted. if this is the case, it would be rational to change your view to fit with the evidence. you may believe string theory is the most rational theory of quantum mechanics at one time and then change it when new evidence comes to light. being rational doesn't mean you're always right, it means you're always able to justify your position and you can always justify it by saying there's more evidence supporting the proposition than its negation or alternatives. no one can say you're irrational for believing the proposition with the most evidence.

One of things I was trying to point out with my process was that it's not simply enough to believe a claim if there is more evidence for it than its negation. For instance, Plantinga claims it is properly basic to believe in god's existence based upon one's intuition that god is responsible for certain phenomenon, i.e. creation of the universe. If you go through his defense of this, there is nothing truly negating that belief, nor are there any apparent holes in his reasoning. The problem I see, however, is that it doesn't make intuitive sense to conclude that something exists based simply upon the intuition that that something is responsible, no matter how forceful the intuition. In other words, something smells funny about his argument. I cannot negate it, but I would never conclude that it is rational. And therein lies the rub. There is no objective standard as to what constitutes rationality.