Faith and Reason.

[Melchiah]

Also don't forget that the scientific method assumes your answer is wrong until it is proven right, by applying those standards and testing the hypothesis. Faith declares itself correct, and therefore above question, on it's own merit. This is what the rational person finds so abhorrent.

[Kaylia]

Scientific method is subject to change if it's incorrect or ill devised. Faith is not a prerequisite of science. 1+1=2, no faith required.

You still have to believe in the existance of a world that can be explained through the scientific method. You can't change that.


I never said I have issue with this, but this belief is a requirement to use the method. If there is no foundatation/axioms, to your systems, there is nothing in it.

[Tristam]

^ This.

I dont assume scientific method is true. There is nothing "true" about it. It is simply the act of applying standards to what you accept as fact.

Exactly. the scientific method is not by itself a truth, it is a self-correcting mechanism to discover things about the natural world.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

You still have to believe in the existance of a world that can be explained through the scientific method. You can't change that.


I never said I have issue with this, but this belief is a requirement to use the method. If there is no foundatation/axioms, to your systems, there is nothing in it.

We're experiencing this world, there is no belief needed. Huge difference and misconception there.

[Kaylia]

^ This.

I dont assume scientific method is true. There is nothing "true" about it. It is simply the act of applying standards to what you accept as fact.

Yet, you have to state it as true whenever you do science, or your result won't mean anything.

If you don't, you can't talk about scientifical truth, or truth at all. I'm fine with this, but this is exactly what I implied in my post.

Exactly. the scientific method is not by itself a truth, it is a self-correcting mechanism to discover things about the natural world.

And what are you correcting?

[Tristam]

And what are you correcting?

Inaccuracies and improbabilities.

edit: and also models.

[Kaylia]

We're experiencing this world, there is no belief needed. Huge difference and misconception there.

That's funny, I just said the only belief we need is to experience the world, and you tell me we're experiencing the world. I guess we agree?

[Melchiah]

And what are you correcting?

You are being intentionally obtuse, and you need to just stop.

The scientific method is set up to automatically correct faulty postulates by putting them to the test and through peer review. It's what it does. You know this, you are just being argumentative.

[Max™]

Technically the scientific method isn't about what is true.

It is about finding that which is currently unfalsifiable.

I accept no facts as true unto themselves, I simply acknowledge that which has not, and cannot yet be disproved.

Only after exhausting all possible means to invalidate an idea, can you claim it is valid.

Philosophically you can go much further, but scientific rigor generally stops at reproducibility.

I cannot say God is true, because I cannot devise an experiment which will even begin to delineate "God", much less show how to falsify it.

God is a bad hypothesis.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

That's funny, I just said the only belief we need is to experience the world, and you tell me we're experiencing the world. I guess we agree?

I think I see where you're going with this, but what I derived from what you said is we need to believe in what we experience which is simply not true ( on some levels, but we'll come back to this later ). We are experiencing things the scientific method has been used to prove right or wrong. Bacteria, gravity, medicine.

You need to believe in what is not tangible, like prayers healing cancer, blood tears from a Virgin Mary statue, Jesus talking to you and telling you gays will burn in hell. This cannot be proven although it can be said. This takes belief.

Experience supersedes belief as it can be proven.

[Max™]

rofl

Prove you exist.

Prove you are not a figment of my imagination.

Prove you are not a program running in a huge computer at the end of time.

Experience cannot be proven, it can be recorded, and reproduced. It can then be compared against things which do not fall in the category of experience, and non-experiences can be falsified, from which you can infer that the category of experience is true.

[Tristam]

I cannot say God is true, because I cannot devise an experiment which will even begin to delineate "God", much less show how to falsify it.

God is a bad hypothesis.

Exactly, it's untestable, nor is it even defined in a manner which would lend itself to obervation. This is a gigantic wall between faith and reason that can never be reconciled.

[Kaylia]

You are being intentionally obtuse, and you need to just stop.

The scientific method is set up to automatically correct faulty postulates by putting them to the test and through peer review. It's what it does. You know this, you are just being argumentative.

Yes and no. I know it's semantic, but it's pretty damn important since definitions is all we have.


You tell me you're correcting postulate, but you're correcting it from your observations. You have to accepts those observation as something absolutes above anything.

[Max™]

We're talking about the limits of observation here, which inherently place a logical limit on reason and proof.

Mathematically you can have an absolute proof.

1 does not equal 2.

Math is just a language we use to describe what we experience as reality.

Having spent years now pondering the absolute definition of reality, I do not think it would be wise for anyone to claim something is an unconditional fact without making quotation marks with their fingers in the air.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

rofl

Prove you exist.

Prove you are not a figment of my imagination.

Prove you are not a program running in a huge computer at the end of time.

Experience cannot be proven, it can be recorded, and reproduced. It can then be compared against things which do not fall in the category of experience, and non-experiences can be falsified, from which you can infer that the category of experience is true.

You got me, using the word experience was a bad way to go. But I think you understood what I meant.

I can get into this whole transcendental conversation with you but if I were next to you I could pinch your arm. You have a face, you have an action, you have a feeling, and then you have a memory. This is an experience. Whether this proves or disproves my existence to you is your call, as it is your existence to experience.

There is cause and effect and it is realized on a moment to moment basis by all of us, so regardless of the source it is happening in our perception.

If I pinch your arm you experienced me pinching your arm. Ted Haggard believes Jesus pinched his arm.

Big, big difference. But again I'll agree with you that experience is a bad choice of a word.

[Max™]

Well, I could get into a whole discussion about time, and how the Universe is just a collection of states which we would describe as experience.

Then I could ask you to consider a state other than a Universe, where distance and duration have no set meaning, and against that ask how one can say anything is absolute.

So in general when I refer to fact or truth or logic or proof, I always add "within this Universe" unless noted.

[Kaylia]

I think I see where you're going with this, but what I derived from what you said is we need to believe in what we experience which is simply not true ( on some levels, but we'll come back to this later ). We are experiencing things the scientific method has been used to prove right or wrong. Bacteria, gravity, medicine.

You need to believe in what is not tangible, like prayers healing cancer, blood tears from a Virgin Mary statue, Jesus talking to you and telling you gays will burn in hell. This cannot be proven although it can be said. This takes belief.

Experience supersedes belief as it can be proven.

This is getting out of hands.

I'm saying you need to set something as "true" for any logical reasoning. Scientific methods doesn't escape reason, and you need need a first axiom somewhere if you want to get any truth out of it. This axiom can't be demonstrate through science itself, that's why it become a belief.

I cannot say God is true, because I cannot devise an experiment which will even begin to delineate "God", much less show how to falsify it.

*scientific truth.

If scientific method is your only belief/guideline, then you're right.

[Neosutra]

Dont take the bait guys Q.Q.

[Max™]

I should listen to you, but I cannot help it.

It isn't about truth, Kaylia, it is about that which is not false.

Science is a collection of observations and theories which have not yet been falsified.

Note the conditional "not yet", as any scientist you meet who says anything is absolutely true, and is not speaking of some mathematical bit of logic, needs a bit of a refresher in science.

[Kaylia]

I should listen to you, but I cannot help it.

It isn't about truth, Kaylia, it is about that which is not false.

Science is a collection of observations and theories which have not yet been falsified.

Note the conditional "not yet", as any scientist you meet who says anything is absolutely true, and is not speaking of some mathematical bit of logic, needs a bit of a refresher in science.

We aren't talking about the same thing. You're talking about theories established through scientifical methods, I'm talking about the method itself and the reason why we can construct mathematical models based on what we observed.