On Thu, Feb 9, 2017 at 8:11 PM, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, Feb 8, 2017 at 2:34 AM, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> > wrote: > > >>> > Does the agnostic or the atheist have >>> t >>> he correct scientific >>> stance regarding a teapot in orbit around Uranus? I like what the great >>> Isaac Asimov >>> had to say on the subject: >> >> >> > >> Both have a healthy tendency to estimate probabilities. This prevents >> them from wasting time but also get killed, etc. >> Sometimes the estimates are wrong, of course. > > > How can one be certain of anything, what does "certain" even mean? Euclid > proved 2500 years ago that there is no such thing as the largest prime > number, his proof makes perfect sense to me but maybe the proof contains a > flaw somewhere that I and everybody else has overlooked for the last 2500 > years. > > Well maybe, but I judge the probability of it containing a flaw to be so low > that it would not be worth my time looking for it because there are plenty > of far more interesting things to do and the time spent looking for a flaw > in Euclid's proof is time not spent doing something else. So "being certain" > is a emotional state not a logical one, it marks the point where you judge a > train of thought should stop and the point where you judge it's time to move > on to something new. Yes your judgement could be wrong, but if you're smart > it probably isn't.
I don't disagree. If we look back in scientific history, there always seems to be something fundamental that humanity is blind to. The real scale of the universe in space and time, the non-specialness of our solar system, evolution, the big bang, also relativity, quantum mechanics, etc. I find it a bit too convenient to believe that this trend stopped here. That we now have it all mostly figured out, precisely at our moment in history. Especially when there are huge mysteries remaining, notably "what is consciousness?". The scientific stance is to do the best with what we have, as you say, and also admit that there is an epistemic horizon, as there always was. >> This happens a lot in >> science. If you have a good idea that is sufficiently new or unknown, > > > Most new ideas in science turn out to be dead wrong, especially if they're > BIG new ideas, that's why scientific revolutions don't happen every day. > People like Newton Darwin and Einstein are rare. Agreed. >> The difference between god and a tea pot is that the tea pot is >> well-defined. > > > Good point. I am certain there is not a teapot in orbit around Uranus, but I > judge there very well could be an > invisible amoral mindless > formless > metaphorical > blob of some sort in orbit around that planet. I am not asking you to accept anything harder to believe than that there are fundamental things that we do not know. This is all I am saying. This is the problem I have with militant atheists: their inability to consider certain ideas without trying to fit the opponent into a box that they know how to attack. One points out epistemological limits, and it is the same as if one were wearing wizard suits and casting spells from bronze-age silly books. Telmo. > John K Clark > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
