(June 25, 2015 at 11:43 am)Tonus Wrote: How do we know that blue whales exist? I've only seen pictures and video, and we know that those can be faked. I've read about them, but men are fallible and can lie and mislead us! How do we know that molecules exist? Atoms? Neutrinos? Gas giants? Cedar waxwings? Gatling guns? Gravity? The color red????
We are where we are today as a species and a global community because we are able to filter out the stuff that is real from the stuff that is bullshit most of the time. Even with the special exceptions we make for religion and other forms of woo, we've managed to build a pretty modern and advanced world for ourselves. If god was real and decided to make himself known, what makes anyone think that we'd have a problem figuring it out? Why would anyone expect that god would show up, perform a card trick for a few people, then duck back into his metaphysical closet and wait to see how billions of us react?
Maybe the problem is that we expect so little from god, while extolling his almighty virtues. Just show up already. We'll figure it out.
Isn't it really that we've just figured out what works, from what is observed? we haven't actually solved any of those problems. Like you said, we've just filtered it out, it doesn't necessarily mean we've settled the issue.
I've taken a pretty strong stance against Bertrand Russell and the other correspondence truth theorists. It seems like a useless way of thinking.
Which is really the question hidden behind this question. That being said, can we really get a proper correspondence to anything? or is it forever going to be what "works"?
Does the correspondence even really matter if it works?
Plato had defined Man as an animal, biped and featherless, and was applauded. Diogenes plucked a fowl and brought it into the lecture room with the words,
"Behold Plato's man!"
