InsaneMystic
Ex-Scooby
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2008
- Messages
- 2,505
- Age
- 52
Gonna try and keep my reply short, as we are indeed rapidly spinning WAY off topic here...
Serious natural science is neither competent about nor interested in objective truth - anyone who says otherwise is, basically, not a scientist. Instead, empirical science is about the statistical probability of occurrences within the base assumptions of the frame of reference. You can never prove something objectively true by science; unless you can prove it untrue because of logical impossibility (<< that, indeed, is the concept of falsifiability), you can merely rate it according to its likelihood.
Indeed, mental illness basically is based on nothing more than too much divergence from a statistical average. For all we know, the lizard men may be as objectively true as you or me (your and my objective existence, too, remain unproven and unprovable, of course)... so if there's any flaw, it's the assumption that the lizard men must be objectively unreal.
Within an empirist frame of reference observing the schizophreniac from the outside, they certainly are exceedingly unlikely to be real, but as they are not logically impossible to be real, final proof will remain outstanding. It would take an objective observer to decide on objective truth using empirism - so unless God speaks up, the point is moot. 😀
(The biggest problem with your counterargument is, however, that a hardcore solipsist would have to actually be said patient in order to argue that the lizard men are an actual reality. If he is merely observing the patient, their reality goes only as far as he actually shares the belief - because the patient himself is potentially unreal, his beliefs are "twice removed" from the solipsist's reality of self. 😉)
Okies, I just had to make my stance clear there... so, back to S6 now? 😉
Empirical science is founded on blind faith (as is any logical system - you will always find one or more axioms at the core, which, as Gödel demonstrated, cannot ever be proven within the system unless said system is either extremely primitive or internally inconsistent) in the existence of an objective universe perceptible to senses. Of course, the fundamental problem with empirism - which goes from "problem" to "flaw" once an empirist tries to speak of objective truth - is that the senses are part of that universe. It is, indeed, like proving God by citing the Bible.
Serious natural science is neither competent about nor interested in objective truth - anyone who says otherwise is, basically, not a scientist. Instead, empirical science is about the statistical probability of occurrences within the base assumptions of the frame of reference. You can never prove something objectively true by science; unless you can prove it untrue because of logical impossibility (<< that, indeed, is the concept of falsifiability), you can merely rate it according to its likelihood.
No. I do not know the source of "my" thoughts - the existence of "me" remains dubitable. For all "I" know, "my" thoughts might well be a simulation running on a complex computer, or whatever. Descartes was, if anything, too naive; he's effectively inserting the ego as a hidden axiom into the ergo sum.
See above. Falsifiability, basically, only serves to determine what cannot be real. It is totally inadequate to determine what is real.
Indeed, mental illness basically is based on nothing more than too much divergence from a statistical average. For all we know, the lizard men may be as objectively true as you or me (your and my objective existence, too, remain unproven and unprovable, of course)... so if there's any flaw, it's the assumption that the lizard men must be objectively unreal.
Within an empirist frame of reference observing the schizophreniac from the outside, they certainly are exceedingly unlikely to be real, but as they are not logically impossible to be real, final proof will remain outstanding. It would take an objective observer to decide on objective truth using empirism - so unless God speaks up, the point is moot. 😀
(The biggest problem with your counterargument is, however, that a hardcore solipsist would have to actually be said patient in order to argue that the lizard men are an actual reality. If he is merely observing the patient, their reality goes only as far as he actually shares the belief - because the patient himself is potentially unreal, his beliefs are "twice removed" from the solipsist's reality of self. 😉)
Which is hardly a failure, as the existence of an outside world is dubitable to start with. 🙂
Okies, I just had to make my stance clear there... so, back to S6 now? 😉
Z
zobothehobo
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