Peter Jones: > > Theology is a subset of metaphysics. Metaphysics does not deal with > > purely logical and/or empirical facts. T > > Metaphysics can. It depends on who is doing it. > > > his means you could come up with > > any metaphysical theory consistent with the logical and empirical facts, > > no matter how silly, and no-one would be able to rebutt it. > > Of course not, that is utterly wrong. > > Meaphysicians often invoke Occam's razor, for instance. > > In cany case, people who seriously think we > are all living in Plato's heaven are already dealing in metaphysics of > the most > baroque kind. > > > For example, > > I could say that friction is the result of tiny, undetectable demons who > > try to grab my finger as I slide it against an object. Sure, there's no way > > to prove these demons do or don't exist, but I'm going to believe in them > > anyway as a metaphysical theory. > > And there's no way to prove we aren't computer-simulated...
Right! So if you claimed we were living in a computer simulation because you liked the sound of it, that would be a metaphysical position. If Democritus came up with the idea that everything was made of atoms because he liked the sound of it that would have been a metaphysical position, even if happened to be true, because it would only have been true *by luck*, not because there was some good reason to believe it was true. If Democritus had come up with a good reason for his atomic theory, that would then have been science, not metaphysics. Stathis Papaioannou _________________________________________________________________ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
