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RE: Atheist VS Naturalist - the latter sounds more appealing to me...
June 8, 2020 at 7:32 am
(This post was last modified: June 8, 2020 at 7:33 am by The Grand Nudger.)
We can build a pile of pebbles and check. I'm willing to bet that one pile will have more pebbles in it than the other.
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RE: Atheist VS Naturalist - the latter sounds more appealing to me...
June 8, 2020 at 8:05 am
(This post was last modified: June 8, 2020 at 9:24 am by polymath257.)
(June 8, 2020 at 7:14 am)Belacqua Wrote: (June 7, 2020 at 3:51 pm)polymath257 Wrote: So, what conflict resolution procedure do you propose for determining the truth or falsity of claims about the supernatural? If two people make conflicting claims about some supernatural topic, how can the dispute be resolved? It seems to me that in order to make truth claims, there has to *at least* be some sort of process to separate truth from falsity. Both math and science have such. What about the study of the supernatural?
It depends on how you're defining "supernatural." If you're defining it as that which is unknowable to humans, I'd say that no truth resolution is possible. Because we can't understand it, we can't make claims about it. We might claim that something which seems supernatural has happened, but this would also be untestable. Because that which is outside of nature -- the only purview of science -- can't be tested by science.
Some people might dislike the idea of having a part of the world which can't by definition be tested. But we can't always get what we want.
We went over this. That definition doesn't work for a variety of reasons. I gave examples before.
Quote:Quote:And like I said, in any particular case, you have to *test* to see if the mathematical formulation fits the data or not. The whole game is in that phrase 'short of other factors involved that may interfere with their interactions or whatever'. You have to *test* to see if there are such 'interactions' and whether you broke things into 'objects' correctly, and whether there is 'conservation of objects'. Once again, the situations where the math does apply are the interesting ones because they are saying there is a conservation law of sorts.
Again, you're not talking about math. You're talking about empirically-known situations which are measured by math.
I want to know whether a googolplex is really smaller than a googolplex plus one. Do we need an empirical test to determine the truth of this? Or is it known through definitions and logic?
No, it is a result from an axiom system. We make assumptions (the axioms) and derive the result from those axioms.
If we choose different axioms, we get a different collection of results. I can (easily) come up with usable axioms that allow for a googleplex and a googleplex plus one to be equal and where no order consistent with the operations can be defined.
You seem to think there is only one possible mathematics. And that is wrong. You seem to think there is only one 'logic'. And that is also wrong.
It isn't tested empirically *because* it says nothing about the real world. When dealing with the real world, testing is required.
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RE: Atheist VS Naturalist - the latter sounds more appealing to me...
June 8, 2020 at 8:37 am
(June 8, 2020 at 7:14 am)Belacqua Wrote: Some people might dislike the idea of having a part of the world which can't by definition be tested. But we can't always get what we want.
Then it remains a definition only, why introduce it at all as a real possibility with real consequences ?
'Those who ask a lot of questions may seem stupid, but those who don't ask questions stay stupid'
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RE: Atheist VS Naturalist - the latter sounds more appealing to me...
June 8, 2020 at 8:40 am
(May 14, 2020 at 10:54 am)Editz Wrote: the only problem I can see with describing myself as a naturalist from here on out is that some people might think I go hang out at the beach butt naked...this could be quite witty though, thinking on, so no bad really! Thoughts?
Depends. How big's your dong?
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RE: Atheist VS Naturalist - the latter sounds more appealing to me...
June 8, 2020 at 11:41 am
The 6 year old within my brain would ask "If the supernatural is always outside of nature, then it must be a very long ways away. Galaxies are super far away. And if it's always outside, then it can never be inside. And if it's never inside..."
You see where I'm going with this.
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RE: Atheist VS Naturalist - the latter sounds more appealing to me...
June 8, 2020 at 12:32 pm
(June 8, 2020 at 11:41 am)Rahn127 Wrote: The 6 year old within my brain would ask "If the supernatural is always outside of nature, then it must be a very long ways away. Galaxies are super far away. And if it's always outside, then it can never be inside. And if it's never inside..."
You see where I'm going with this.
Supernatural is in the ifth and oofth dimension, so like you have the Cartesian coordinates x,y,z and those three move through time.
Clear enough? 
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