Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: March 28, 2024, 4:46 pm

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Devil's advocate for why ontology is meaningless and vacuous.
#71
RE: Devil's advocate for why ontology is meaningless and vacuous.
Yes, everything depends on experience. It's all we have. The evidence for my claim (which isn't meant to be absolute) is that it has consistently proved to be the case. Any deviation results in total failure.
Feel free to send me a private message.
Please visit my website here! It's got lots of information about atheism/theism and support for new atheists.

Index of useful threads and discussions
Index of my best videos
Quickstart guide to the forum
Reply
#72
RE: Devil's advocate for why ontology is meaningless and vacuous.
(September 12, 2016 at 8:42 am)robvalue Wrote: Yes, everything depends on experience. It's all we have. The evidence for my claim (which isn't meant to be absolute) is that it has consistently proved to be the case. Any deviation results in total failure.
Is there an escape from solipsism that can be had by means other than intuition? Can experience tell us anything about the world as it exists outside of our consciousness? It seems that anything we might know or speculate about such realities is derivative of our intellectual properties and can go as far as those, rather than our senses, are able to take us.

Not to mention, a body of scientific knowledge such as mathematics is wholly dependent on axioms that can be known apart from experience, that is, they don't much seem to require any verification outside of their own definitions, and the functions or qualities that these involve, to be understood as true or false.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
Reply
#73
RE: Devil's advocate for why ontology is meaningless and vacuous.
Objective only really means that there is an independent object to which a subject refers. Does it mean something to be human? If it does mean something to be human then that essential human nature is the object to which subjective values refer.
Reply
#74
RE: Devil's advocate for why ontology is meaningless and vacuous.
(September 12, 2016 at 8:51 am)Mudhammam Wrote:
(September 12, 2016 at 8:42 am)robvalue Wrote: Yes, everything depends on experience. It's all we have. The evidence for my claim (which isn't meant to be absolute) is that it has consistently proved to be the case. Any deviation results in total failure.
Is there an escape from solipsism that can be had by means other than intuition?  Can experience tell us anything about the world as it exists outside of our consciousness?  It seems that anything we might know or speculate about such realities is derivative of our intellectual properties and can go as far as those, rather than our senses, are able to take us.

Not to mention, a body of scientific knowledge such as mathematics is wholly dependent on axioms that can be known apart from experience, that is, they don't much seem to require any verification outside of their own definitions, and the functions or qualities that these involve, to be understood as true or false.

I would say no, there is no escape from solipsism. All we can do is make pragmatic assumptions. But we needn't even make all of them, really. For example, I don't have to assume anything is "real". It's real to me, and that's as good as it's ever going to get.

Yes, mathematics is an abstract system which is defined by strict rules. Such systems only need to be internally consistent. They may or may not relate to reality in any useful way. Mathematics is not scientific knowledge, though. It's a tool. It's used to describe scientific knowledge.
Feel free to send me a private message.
Please visit my website here! It's got lots of information about atheism/theism and support for new atheists.

Index of useful threads and discussions
Index of my best videos
Quickstart guide to the forum
Reply
#75
RE: Devil's advocate for why ontology is meaningless and vacuous.
(September 12, 2016 at 11:54 am)robvalue Wrote: I would say no, there is no escape from solipsism. All we can do is make pragmatic assumptions. But we needn't even make all of them, really. For example, I don't have to assume anything is "real". It's real to me, and that's as good as it's ever going to get.

Yes, mathematics is an abstract system which is defined by strict rules. Such systems only need to be internally consistent. They may or may not relate to reality in any useful way. Mathematics is not scientific knowledge, though. It's a tool. It's used to describe scientific knowledge.

Just an observation...it seems to me that in order to maintain your position you feel it necessary to 1) deny that the universe has an intelligible order and 2) that reason cannot revealing facts; but rather, merely provides useful subjective opinions.
Reply
#76
RE: Devil's advocate for why ontology is meaningless and vacuous.
(September 12, 2016 at 11:54 am)robvalue Wrote: I would say no, there is no escape from solipsism. All we can do is make pragmatic assumptions. But we needn't even make all of them, really. For example, I don't have to assume anything is "real". It's real to me, and that's as good as it's ever going to get.

Yes, mathematics is an abstract system which is defined by strict rules. Such systems only need to be internally consistent. They may or may not relate to reality in any useful way. Mathematics is not scientific knowledge, though. It's a tool. It's used to describe scientific knowledge.
Is mathematics only a tool? For the most part, from what I have gathered, it has been thought of as a science, and one of the few in which any certain knowledge about reality can be had. The physical sciences, on the other hand, have more or less been thought to amount to but educated guesswork and opinion, given what you concede about the nature of consciousness and subjectivity.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
Reply
#77
RE: Devil's advocate for why ontology is meaningless and vacuous.
The value of pi is not determined by averaging empirical measurements of circular objects.
Reply



Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Why free will probably does not exist, and why we should stop treating people - WisdomOfTheTrees 22 4470 February 8, 2017 at 7:43 pm
Last Post: WisdomOfTheTrees
  Theists and Atheists: the "is there a God Devil's advocate thread Alex K 60 11646 October 30, 2015 at 7:22 am
Last Post: ignoramus
Lightbulb In the universe there is no meaning nor is it meaningless FractalEternalWheel 5 2739 January 18, 2014 at 1:40 am
Last Post: Faith No More
Information The Meaningless of Life. Big Blue Sky 20 3958 May 30, 2013 at 5:11 am
Last Post: KichigaiNeko
  Ontology of God--Theological Noncognitivist View Knight 132 60070 January 28, 2010 at 8:15 am
Last Post: Edwardo Piet



Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)