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dv82matt
SFN Regular
760 Posts |
 Posted - 09/06/2007 : 11:15:53 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
Only in a completely static world.
Tool a checks tool b, and if tool b is found lacking it is discarded or revised. Tool b-2 is then used to evaluate tool a. No tautalogy. Some assumptions, yes. |
Well you've just traded tautalogies for assumptions then. Skepticism cannot simply assume the truth of the claim it is evaluating, doing so is not skepticism.
I'm not saying skepticism has no basis but I am saying that whatever the basis of skepticism is it can't be skepticism.
| Besides, all the tools we use are predicated on our own knowledge. No tool of the same name is actually the same tool in another person's hands, thus greatly expanding the number of individual tools available to check the rest. |
Expanding the number of tools doesn't help to provide a basis for skepticism. This is really just a dressed up appeal to ignorance. By trying to make the problem impossible to analyse one can pretend that the conclusion one prefers is possible.
| They also all started out with the most basic tool of all, simple observation. |
For the purpose of argument let's assume that skepticism can be verified soley through observation. If you consider observation as being part of skepticism then you have not verified skepticism because you have not verified observation, but if you consider observation as seperate from skepticism then you have applied observation not skepticism, to skepticism.
Now you can try to make things fuzzy and ambiguous but that just makes things worse since the less well defined a claim is the less effective skepticism is at deciding its truth value.
| We can get into the whole solipsism thing, but that is rather pointless. We all know that the most basic underlying assumptions we all make rest on nothing. For pratical reasons we are forced to accept them. |
Yeah, I don't think solipsism is valid anyway.
By the way no idealised logical system can be applied to itself without commiting logical fallacies or adding assumptions. So this isn't a limitation that is specific to skepticism.
It could be that the basis of skepticism is, in large part, simple pragmatism. |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 09/06/2007 : 18:45:04 [Permalink]
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Gorgo wrote: | Saying "I don't know" is the only honest way to explain things you don't know. |
I disagree. Saying "I don't and can't know, but I believe this..." is just as honest. Knowledge and belief are two separate things when regarded in that context. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 09/06/2007 : 19:51:18 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
Gorgo wrote: | Saying "I don't know" is the only honest way to explain things you don't know. |
I disagree. Saying "I don't and can't know, but I believe this..." is just as honest. |
Right, but only one of those is consistent with skepticism.
Knowledge and belief are two separate things when regarded in that context.
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What context? This conversation is only about the skeptical context, except you often seem to drift into defending theism in general, regardless of skepticism.
Marf, maybe you know good people who are honest, mostly rational, and theists. But they aren't skeptics, nor are their beliefs "compatible" with skepticism. Come to terms with it already.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 09/06/2007 19:53:41 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 09/06/2007 : 20:22:25 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
Dave wrote: | I don't know how it can be meaningful, which is one of the reasons I asked you for an example of a supernatural claim. |
To be honest, I don't understand how it is meaningful either, but it apparently makes sense to a lot of people (like Spong or Bidlack) who as far as I can tell are totally rational and highly intelligent people, so I can't entirely discount it because that feels like hard core intellectual arrogance on my part. |
No, Sarek wasn't even "totally rational," so it's unlikely that any mere human might be. And intelligence is no immunization from having unskeptical beliefs - there are plenty of unquestionably brilliant people who believe stupid things. And calling into question someone's skepticism on a subject is, in effect, counting upon their intelligence and rationality to help them work their way towards skepticism on that subject.| To me, skepticism is about trusting knowledge before belief, not only trusting knowledge. (I'm defining knowledge as that which can be proven using the scientific method.) |
That's exactly correct. Evidence must come before belief. If there's no evidence, then there's no reason for belief to follow. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/06/2007 : 23:44:30 [Permalink]
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dv82matt said:
Well you've just traded tautalogies for assumptions then. Skepticism cannot simply assume the truth of the claim it is evaluating, doing so is not skepticism.
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Basic assumptions, but yes. Everything rests on a small handfull of very basic assumptions. The assumption that the world around you exists externally from yourself, for example. That your senses are capable of accurately detecting it.
Everything rests on our ability to make observations, and at the most fundamental level we must assume that our observations are real because there is no way to prove they are. The rest, logic, critical thinking, skepticism, and the scientific method are all based on that assumption.
Expanding the number of tools doesn't help to provide a basis for skepticism. This is really just a dressed up appeal to ignorance. By trying to make the problem impossible to analyse one can pretend that the conclusion one prefers is possible.
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Working from the asumption that what we observe is real, increasing the number of those observations improves their accuracy.
For the purpose of argument let's assume that skepticism can be verified soley through observation. If you consider observation as being part of skepticism then you have not verified skepticism because you have not verified observation, but if you consider observation as seperate from skepticism then you have applied observation not skepticism, to skepticism.
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Back to my point about different tools. You are making a mistake if you assume skepticism is a single thing. Its a method that includes many seperate tools. Logic, observation, critical examination, etc.
Now you can try to make things fuzzy and ambiguous but that just makes things worse since the less well defined a claim is the less effective skepticism is at deciding its truth value.
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Not so. The degree of definition helps greatly in determining truth value. Poorly defined claims are typically not given a value of true until more evidence and a clear definition are available.
| It could be that the basis of skepticism is, in large part, simple pragmatism. |
I agree, and would take it a step further.
Everything is based on simple pragmatism. Those fundamental things I mentioned earlier are assumed to be true for pragmatic reasons. If you don't assume they are true then you have nothing but solipsism.
It is impossible to function without accepting assumptions about the very nature of reality as true, without any evidence at all.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 09/07/2007 : 06:18:36 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
Gorgo wrote: | Saying "I don't know" is the only honest way to explain things you don't know. |
I disagree. Saying "I don't and can't know, but I believe this..." is just as honest. Knowledge and belief are two separate things when regarded in that context.
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That's a rather vague statement. Saying, "I don't know and I believe," may be saying "I don't know, but I know," or it may be saying, "I don't know but I speculate that....." Religion says, I can't prove something, therefore I know something, and therefore will act on that knowledge.
Saying that "I can't know" something, requires a lot of knowledge about something that that person professes not to have knowledge about. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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| Edited by - Gorgo on 09/07/2007 06:19:31 |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 09/07/2007 : 06:25:12 [Permalink]
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Again, I think the main point of the thread is not that people lack perfect skepticism about some things, and still try to be skeptics. They would get rid of those non-skeptical ideas if they would learn that they are non-skeptical.
Those that embrace religion embrace it because it is non-skeptical. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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dv82matt
SFN Regular
760 Posts |
Posted - 09/08/2007 : 14:48:36 [Permalink]
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Well Dude I pretty much agree with everything in your most recent post. I'm still not clear on your justification for saying skepticism can be applied to itself though.
Originally posted by Dude
Basic assumptions, but yes. Everything rests on a small handfull of very basic assumptions. The assumption that the world around you exists externally from yourself, for example. That your senses are capable of accurately detecting it.
Everything rests on our ability to make observations, and at the most fundamental level we must assume that our observations are real because there is no way to prove they are. The rest, logic, critical thinking, skepticism, and the scientific method are all based on that assumption. |
Yes, and I have no desire to drag solipsism into the discussion in any case.
| Working from the asumption that what we observe is real, increasing the number of those observations improves their accuracy. |
Sure, but if they are observations about the veracity of skepticism, then that statement itself becomes a claim to which skepticism cannot be applied.
| Back to my point about different tools. You are making a mistake if you assume skepticism is a single thing. |
I agree that skepticism is not a single thing but virtually anything can be subdivided. What I'm not seeing is how dividing skepticism into smaller parts does anything but complicate what is essentially a simple problem.
Further applying observation to skepticism without also applying logic (or vice-versa) is in no way applying skepticism to itself.
| Its a method that includes many seperate tools. Logic, observation, critical examination, etc. |
Sure. Thogh critical examination is just a rough synonym for skepticism.
| Not so. The degree of definition helps greatly in determining truth value. Poorly defined claims are typically not given a value of true until more evidence and a clear definition are available. |
Yep. I'm not sure what the "Not so" refers to though.
I agree, and would take it a step further.
Everything is based on simple pragmatism. Those fundamental things I mentioned earlier are assumed to be true for pragmatic reasons. If you don't assume they are true then you have nothing but solipsism.
It is impossible to function without accepting assumptions about the very nature of reality as true, without any evidence at all. |
I suppose one could take it back even further with evolution's 'survival of the fittest' maxim providing the basis for pragmatism. |
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Is Skepticism Compatible with Belief in God?
