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Open-minded Skepticism

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Author Topic:   Open-minded Skepticism
ringo
Member (Idle past 665 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005

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Message 19 of 85 (756792)
04-27-2015 12:55 PM 		Reply to: Message 15 by Straggler
04-07-2015 4:54 PM

Re: Glad you agree now
Straggler writes:
​
What happens if we put the question of whether your model is itself valid, through your little model?
Knowledge isn't a house of cards with an identifiable foundation. It's a geodesic sphere: every piece of validated objective empirical evidence depends on another piece of validated objective empirical evidence. The overall system is only "valid" because it's internally self-consistent. It doesn't rest on anything external.
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 Message 20 by Straggler, posted 04-27-2015 6:18 PM ringo has replied
  
ringo
Member (Idle past 665 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005

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Message 21 of 85 (756827)
04-28-2015 11:42 AM 		Reply to: Message 20 by Straggler
04-27-2015 6:18 PM

Re: Glad you agree now
Straggler writes:
​
All sorts of things are internally self consistent but still largely worthless.
The point is that they're not internally worthless - and sometimes internal is all we have.
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ringo
Member (Idle past 665 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005

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Message 38 of 85 (759316)
06-10-2015 4:06 PM 		Reply to: Message 36 by subbie
06-10-2015 3:51 PM

subbie writes:
​
I had thought that part of the definition of "skeptic" is the idea that the skeptic is looking for evidence and will rationally weigh and consider evidence offered.
To True Believers - e.g. the folks over at Evolution Fairy Tale - "skeptic" apparently refers to people who accept evidence over the Bible.
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ringo
Member (Idle past 665 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005

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Message 56 of 85 (759434)
06-11-2015 11:51 AM 		Reply to: Message 52 by mikechell
06-11-2015 6:42 AM

Re: Okay ... I'll give up.
mikechell writes:
​
Off I go into my own world, you can keep this one.
That is the bottom line: we are each in a world of our own. We can only communicate about the areas where our perceptions happen to coincide.
​
Observation is only worth what we can agree on.
​
Facts mean only what we agree they mean. Nothing indeed is "definite fact", only agreed fact.
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ringo
Member (Idle past 665 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005

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Message 79 of 85 (759604)
06-13-2015 12:31 PM 		Reply to: Message 77 by mikechell
06-13-2015 11:38 AM

Re: bicker, bicker, bicker ...
mikechell writes:
​
Green is in the electro-magnetic spectrum.
It is a fact that there are photons with a wavelength between 495 and 570 nanometers but "green" is not a fact. It's subjective.
​
When a tree falls in the forest there are vibrations - but are they "sound" before they strike an eardrum? The answer is subjective.
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ringo
Member (Idle past 665 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005

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Message 84 of 85 (759701)
06-14-2015 2:32 PM 		Reply to: Message 82 by mikechell
06-13-2015 2:17 PM

Re: Once again ... I'll give up.
mikechell writes:
​
You all can question the validity of a true fact.
If you need to qualify "fact" with "true", you're just making the "truth" of your "facts" less certain.
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