(October 4, 2013 at 9:49 pm)Rational AKD Wrote:I'm with you to this degree: using the mind, which is posited to be PART of the universe, to establish what is true in the whole universe, fails. A subset cannot encompass a set.(October 4, 2013 at 9:38 pm)bennyboy Wrote: You don't need to know exact probabilites to know that something is highly improbable. There COULD be a Flying Spaghetti Monster orbiting Earth. But since we have no reason to believe there is one, and no evidence that points to one, and no mundane experience that gives principles that can be logically extended to the existence of one, we don't believe there is such an entity.
Can't prove it. Still comfortable saying it's highly improbable.
what you are ignoring is you need to determine what is possible before you can determine what is probable. as you said "There COULD be a Flying Spaghetti Monster orbiting Earth" is a reasonable statement claiming possibility. but that's the problem, it requires reason to make such a statement. since our reason is in question according to entailments of naturalism, we can't even be sure of that much, yet alone how probable it is.
If I thought you were working toward an agnostic position, I'd be on board. However, I know that you're attempting to undermine rational or objective views of the universe in order to make room for intuition or purely philosophical views; basically, you're driving a wedge into physicalism to make room for a God-of-the-gaps argument.
With this process I cannot agree. Tearing down objective gnosticism to make room for another, inferior kind of gnosticism fails. "Anything is possible, and we don't know what it true, therefore let's consider the God idea" fails epically.
