Scientific Knowledge

Hi Panda, Aw.... poor baby. Leaping to concussions again? Making false assumptions again?As you can see from Message 103 and Message 104 that you have your answer, and that all you have done is misunderstood/misrepresented my position AND Truzzi, so by "stalking" you just end up, imho, looking foolish on two counts: (1) you were wrong and (2) you were answered. When you make a statement like this you should check your facts first, and you should be able to provide an actual quote of me actually making the claim YOU assert. Otherwise you are (a) attacking a strawman, and (b) making a silly mistake that is avoidable.Curiously, I have asked you before to actually quote me when you make up stuff like this, but you have been unable to -- a tacit admission, imho , that you are making it up, rather than representing my position accurately.To understand a position you need to be able to paraphrase it accurately. If you paraphrase it inaccurately and then portray\attack that innaccurate strawman in a post, you end up in the position you are in here.Enjoy.Edited by Zen Deist, : more

Hi Panda,Another foolish logical blunder? Or are you just using lax in terminology and then basing your argument on your lax terminology? Just for being "mentioned" no, but Voldemort is not just "mentioned" -- he is a central character, a magical character, created by the author, in a fantasy fiction novel series.Are you claiming that a magical character, created by the author, in a fantasy fiction novel series, central to the fantasy storyline, is real or has the potential to be real? Really?Enjoy.

I think Panda asked the question because your arguments lead people to the conclusion that you believe that there are cases where less evidence means greater likelihood of being real. In the case of Lord Voldemort you describe evidence indicating his fictional nature, and you're therefore willing to conclude he's fictional. But if someone mentioned someone you'd never heard of before and for whom you had no evidence in any direction, you would conclude it's more likely he's real than Lord Voldemort. I have to agree with this logic.But it would be nice if some clarity could emerge before you and Straggler set records for longest ongoing online discussion and for the discussion spread across the most threads. Hopefully someone will have a stroke of inspiration.--Percy

Hi Straggles, (provocative comment hidden) It really astounds me that you ask this question, when this seemingly minor difference is critical to actually being able to substantiate the hypothetical conjecture.There is a possibility that "supernatural concepts contained in religious documents" are (may be) based on real experiences, while the "supernatural concepts contained in fictional novels" are known a priori to be fictional, and cannot rationally be considered supernatural beings.What you display, by asking such a question, is that you are just assuming that all "supernatural concepts contained in religious documents" are fictional without actually determining that this is so.To substantiate {your (bluegenes et als)} assertion that {all supernatural beings are fictional} you need to investigate and test ones that MAY be real instead of pretending that fictional characters, known a priori to be fictional, fill the bill.When you pretend that fictional characters are evidence of your conjectural hypothesis you end up making silly logical conclusions like: or or As you can (or should be able to) see the logical structure of these constructions is terminally flawed.You can't start from evidence of fiction to show that something else is fiction, as that something else isn't tested, and therefore the hypothetical conjecture isn't tested in any way shape or form.You do not need to investigate "supernatural concepts contained in fictional novels" to see whether or not they are fictional -- that is a given, readily conceded, fact.Humans are capable of creating fiction: sadly, for you, that does not mean that all human concepts are fiction.You DO need to investigate "supernatural concepts contained in religious documents" to see whether or not they are fictional, rather than just assume that this is the case.That is what distinguishes real science from pseudoscience and what distinguishes real skepticism from pseudo skepticism.Enjoy.

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Notes:⁽¹⁾ - Amusingly, you can actually find several statements with this type of false\invalid conclusion in posts by bluegenes on the GD thread, and by people on the Peanut Gallery thread.Edited by Zen Deist, : hiding provocative comment, leaving it for history

Thanks Percy, To be specific, though, my argument is: where there is less evidence contradicting something being real, there is more possibility of it being real; where there is more evidence contradicting something being real, there is less possibility of it being real; where there is less confirming evidence of something being real there is less possibility of it being real; where there is more confirming evidence of something being real there is more possibility of it being real: (love the db table code)And these can be combined:

1. when there is more confirming evidence and less contracting evidence, there is even greater possibility (and more certainty) regarding it being real,
2. when there is more contradicting evidence and less confirming evidence, there is even lesser possibility (and more certainty) regarding it being real,
3. when there is less confirming evidence and less contracting evidence, there are some conflicting possibilities (and some uncertainty) regarding it being real (or not), and
4. when there is more confirming evidence and more contracting evidence, there are more conflicting possibilities (and more uncertainty) regarding it being real (or not).

Yes, that would be a (3) - neutral evidence, some uncertainty - vs a (2) - negative evidence, more certainty. Indeed it would be nice. This is one (prime?) reason I normally hesitate to reply to Straggles - he and I tend to be compulsive responders. I keep waiting for the light of reason to shine down through the clouds of obfuscations. If someone can provide that inspired stroke of logic and reason, then please do so.Enjoy.Edited by Zen Deist, : clrty

Gee, make my day, why don't you? You only need "text-align: center" in the table code, not the row codes, unless you want some rows centered and some not.--Percy

Oh NOOOESS!!
RAZD is stalking me!!
Call the copz!!!!!*cries like a stupid deist in denial*

I don't think this is a particularly respectful way to advance discussion. So take a 12 hour break.As a matter of interest, there is a member called Pandadeist who has made no posts.

Panda wrote: LOL - i know you didn't mean the jokette from a dropped word or 3.
But that was funny._____________________________________________
- a character in the book "xongsmith, 5.7d"

Straggler writes: Are you talkin' to me??!!
Are you talkin' to me??!!
...*whirls around into the mirror*...
Are you talkin' to me??!! DUH, if I had to choose at gunpoint, your inaccurate rephrasing of bluesgenes theory, I would choose your 2. But your 2 is worded WRONG. So I must say NEITHER OF THE ABOVE! It is not a proper recasting of bluegenes' theory.. When you use the word "concept", then you are using a word that describes something inside of intelligent minds. Saying every thing occurring inside of intelligent minds is *something* occurring inside of intelligent minds, on the face of it, is saying *nothing*, right? Now Modulous has quickly said that we have a "concept" of a "horse" that is well-evidenced and that there is a real such thing as a horse. Exactly - but, in this case, we have a much more proper array of equipment that can be brought to bear in that issue. You - an ardent defender of bluegenes' theory and a good drinking buddy of mine by proxy, should know better than this.Here's the way 2) should have read: That is what I think "bluegenes theory is actually saying".LEARN THE DIFFERENCE!!!! USE EXACT QUOTES!!!! Be safe! But let's not get bogged down in this relatively minor issue....Lord Voldermort is a supernatural concept in a known work of fiction - there has NEVER been any attempt by JKRowling to claim that any of her fictional magical Supernatural Concepts are real. Known fictional supernatural concepts that are claimed to be fictional by their own authors CANNOT, by self-definition of the most blatant degree, be a real Supernatural Being or Phenomenon to consider under bluegenes purview. If we already KNOW it is thus forensically fictional, then it's INADMISSIBLE evidence from the get go. It doesn't even get into the courthouse from the prosecution side. Lord Voldermort is NOT a supermatural being, he is only a supernatural concept. No it isn't. Not yet. The equipment we have to observe the reality of the concept of a horse is very different. Jeez - we even have horse DNA testing now. Do we have any such DNA testing for Supernatural Beings?All we have now is primitive equipment that is the equivalent of fixed magnetic rods to probe the lowest depths of a black oil lake in the bottom of an unlit cave and only being capable of pulling up metallic things that magnetically stick to the rod. After profuse independent expert calibration and confirmation, and after numerously repeated probes from this equipment (an allegory of the only available equipment the scientific community has at this time) that to conclude, inductively, that everything at the bottom of black oil lake is metallic is probably not a very scientifically sound way to go. The equipment is limited in it's ability to detect stuff. Your leap to Inductive Atheism from there "kinda" finds you likely falling between the buildings like in The Matrix on the first try. We all need to get up & try again, when we're playing on Team Bluegenes.I still am dumbfounded that we haven't even got past the front door yet.

That is one of my alltime favorites....But I must point out that Euler was defining his words so that it would happen. I have a plot of the successive terms, as Taylor's Series of e to the x would show on a i vs. r window. - That -1 is DOOMED. But - again, it is how the formal definitions of things like "1" and "0" are defined. In another formal system, like paralllel parking your car, 0 and 1 might not add up to 1. *hic*Edited by xongsmith, : No reason given.

Thanks.

Panda write: CITE. Use all of EvC, facebook - hell, the whole internet.CITE.

No. My personal incredulity in this singular instance is only addressed towards YOUR OWN arguments. I've seen your posts - you are very good, you have a subtle wit. You are better than this.

Omnivorous writes: Ah. So the Xongsmith Analemma from Message 1220 agrees with you? Implicitly?? Diddle? Diddle? Promoters? Who are these dudes? WTF???????? Why do what a bunch of ill-informed men get to lay in evidence that you normally would reject out of hand? Yes, yes yes. BUT other than a bunch of INADMISSIBLE evidence and some Leap of Confirmation Bias from magnetic rods which are only capable of measuring the equivalent of magnetism, just how wide spread is this "evidence", beyond hearsay?I'll put it to you here, from this snippet: Who is doing this here? Who is claiming CAUSE???? RAZD (the Zen Deist)? Ah...but science now can only detect these "metallic objects" by what clings on to their "magnetic probes".An obviously precursing lemma to the Xongsmith Analemma is: Remember: all of Astronomy has only had ONE source of data - light. So much has been determined! Just from light! Not like Planetology.....Don't be fooled again, like me.