Actually, we can re-word Max' nonsense in such a way as I had originally talked about (theological noncongitivism) in order to show how arrogantly ignorant he is. Observe:
"What makes a-square-circlists irrational is that they say that there can be no evidence possible that would prove the existence of a square circle since a square circle can not possibly exist. "
Does Max believe that? Of course not. But given the fact that he had it explained to him over and over and over and over.....and over....that there isn't even a coherent definition of god, and he refuses to deal with that, one must conclude that he doesn't let reality stand in the way of his rants.
Maxliberty: Are you saying there are no atheists who believe that by definiton God can not exist as per the common defintion of the term? Baawa has claimed in this thread that God can not exist and so have several others.
Are you saying there are no atheists who believe that by definiton God can not exist as per the common defintion of the term? Baawa has claimed in this thread that God can not exist and so have several others.
As it was already pointed out, if one wants to prove this as a theory, then it must be falsifiable.
Sure, we could at any time drop the falsifiability requirement, but would the theories be useful at all? If there is no way, not even hypothetical (which is not found in the real world, but could be concieved), to disprove it, then it is always true and independent of observations. This is evidently similar to a self-serving bias, which is a logical fallacy.
The problem with "God theories" is that they're not falsifiable. Every contradiction brought up by someone can be explained and deemed to be "God's will", whose "ways are unknown", for example.
Knight_of_BAAWA:Does Max believe that? Of course not. But given the fact that he had it explained to him over and over and over and over.....and over....that there isn't even a coherent definition of god, and he refuses to deal with that, one must conclude that he doesn't let reality stand in the way of his rants.
I would have given him up as 'special' a long time ago but I want my 'much deserved knock on the head'.
Yes, I'm still waiting...
There is more to science and knowledge than falsifiability. Much, much more.
Indeed. I'm not sure why falsibiality is touted as the holy grail, especially on this forum, of all fora.
-Jon
To darkness I condemn you...
Show me one example of unfalsifiable theory that is useful.
And a first-order logic theory can't prove itself without observation. This result is proven by Godel's incompleteness theorems.
Given the fact that observation is the only way of validating a theory, then we must conclude that an unfalsifiable theory cannot be proven, not even statistically, since there are no other means left.
Moreover there can exist two slightly different unfalsifiable theories. They're both true, because they make it impossible to be refuted. But we can't have contradictions. By the principle of explosion, if we were to take both of them as true, so a contradiction arises, any other statement made within the union of both theories can be taken as true.
I'll supply some background reading material:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godel_incompleteness_theorems
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion
Hope this helps.
<deleted>
You can edit your posts. Just click on the "more" button.
Have you even read Hoppe yet? None of what you said entails the hypothetico-deductive methodology.
Eduard - Gabriel Munteanu:Show me one example of unfalsifiable theory that is useful.
Most math?
Eduard - Gabriel Munteanu:And a first-order logic theory can't prove itself without observation. This result is proven by Godel's incompleteness theorems.
It can and does.
scineram: Eduard - Gabriel Munteanu:Show me one example of unfalsifiable theory that is useful. Most math?
Math theories do not claim to be a model of the real world, but a set of rules we agree upon. Therefore the question of falsifiability is not well-defined.
On the other hand, any physics theory that requires the world to obey some mathematical model must be falsifiable. This is well-defined.
scineram: Eduard - Gabriel Munteanu:And a first-order logic theory can't prove itself without observation. This result is proven by Godel's incompleteness theorems. It can and does.
Sorry, I oversimplified it.
Maxliberty: There are lots of witnesses to God. The Bible, the Koran all have direct witnesses to God. It is ok to say you don't believe these people but then you have to argue against the credibility of the witnesses. Also, there are lots of lesser known stories of people witnessing angels and visions and all kinds of things.
There are lots of witnesses to God. The Bible, the Koran all have direct witnesses to God. It is ok to say you don't believe these people but then you have to argue against the credibility of the witnesses. Also, there are lots of lesser known stories of people witnessing angels and visions and all kinds of things.
"All kinds of things" indeed. Does this mean that any hallucination is therefore true?
What we have between our ears is essentially a three-pound hallucination engine. It attempts to realistically render the world around us, but it can certainly misfire on occasion. Or, in some individuals, a lot. The possibility of hallucination in eyewitness accounts of the miraculous must be investigated as well.
Also, what methodology do you use to distinguish between "true" religious writings and "false" religious writings? Do you believe all of it, no matter the contradictions? That almost makes you a Subgenius. Praise "Bob"!
Maxliberty: If you profess to have no knowledge of something how can you say conclusively that you know it doesn't exist. That is the contradiction of the atheist position.
If you profess to have no knowledge of something how can you say conclusively that you know it doesn't exist. That is the contradiction of the atheist position.
Au contraire. I know of no atheist, myself included, that hasn't studied religious literature and apologetics carefully at some point. But I think you are talking about personal revelation. I can also lump myself into this category, having once been a believer in God. Hell, I even spoke in tongues.
Gabriel Munteanu,
Theories about mathematics are unfalsifiable. Imagine that someone theorised that there is a largest prime number. They are theorising about something which is objective, and their theory can be tested. However, at no point are experimental tests performed, and no empirical observation can be brought to falsify the theory. Mathematical theories are about the world of ideas, not the world of physics, chemistry and biology, and are exempted from falsification. In other words, mathematical theories are not scientific. That said, mathematical models can become scientific, and falsifiable, when it is conjectured that they describe the physical world.
There are other unfalsfiable theories which, if true, are very useful. For example, the theory that there is a God and good behaviour can earn you a place in heaven when you die. Quite unfalsifiable, in the forms which it is generally presented, and yet, if true, very useful to know.
Regards,Lee
Depends what you mean by "God". If you meant to say "who believe that by definition no possible conception of god can exist", then yes, there are no such people. If you have a specific definition of "God" in mind, and that definition is contrary to logic, then surely everybody capable of rationality would believe that that god can not exist
ikester8: Maxliberty: There are lots of witnesses to God. The Bible, the Koran all have direct witnesses to God. It is ok to say you don't believe these people but then you have to argue against the credibility of the witnesses. Also, there are lots of lesser known stories of people witnessing angels and visions and all kinds of things. "All kinds of things" indeed. Does this mean that any hallucination is therefore true? What we have between our ears is essentially a three-pound hallucination engine. It attempts to realistically render the world around us, but it can certainly misfire on occasion. Or, in some individuals, a lot. The possibility of hallucination in eyewitness accounts of the miraculous must be investigated as well.
Indeed; Julian Jaynes argues that hallucination is the origin of all religion...
intplee: Gabriel Munteanu, Theories about mathematics are unfalsifiable. Imagine that someone theorised that there is a largest prime number. They are theorising about something which is objective, and their theory can be tested. However, at no point are experimental tests performed, and no empirical observation can be brought to falsify the theory. Mathematical theories are about the world of ideas, not the world of physics, chemistry and biology, and are exempted from falsification. In other words, mathematical theories are not scientific. That said, mathematical models can become scientific, and falsifiable, when it is conjectured that they describe the physical world.
Falsifiability does not require means of experimentation, nor empirical observation, much less real world experiments in particular. I believe you're confusing falsifiability with testability.
In your example, a falsification could be proving a theorem that states that there are infinitely many prime numbers.
My mistake. In the tradition of Karl Popper, to say that a theory is falsifiable is to say that it can be potentially criticised by empirical experiment. I had assumed you were using that definition, according to which mathematical theories are unfalsifiable. If, however, by 'falsifiable' you meant 'can be refuted', then of course, they are falsifiable. That is just not how I would ordinarily use the term.
intplee: Gabriel Munteanu, My mistake. In the tradition of Karl Popper, to say that a theory is falsifiable is to say that it can be potentially criticised by empirical experiment. I had assumed you were using that definition, according to which mathematical theories are unfalsifiable. If, however, by 'falsifiable' you meant 'can be refuted', then of course, they are falsifiable. That is just not how I would ordinarily use the term.
Yeah, I should have explained my point more thoroughly...
I believe the confusion usually arises because most people don't make the difference between axioms and laws.
When it comes to mathematics, we use the term "conjecture" which is analogous to "law" in physics. Conjectures are unproven theorems and often they're believed to be true regardless of the fact that there is no proof.
On the other hand, axioms are always true and they define that particular mathematical "world". Every observation/experiment stems from axioms and complies with them, unless they contradict each other. This is possible because we chose what axioms we put in that theory, so we effectively choose how it behaves.
Physics has few or no axioms. This is because we did NOT choose how the world behaves, but must find out. To find out, all one can do is observe/experiment. So physics is an inductive, rather than deductive science; that is, we generalize consistent behavior from experimental data. On the other hand, mathematics is rather deductive, which means we generally know how it works, but we'd like to find out its implications.
This is quite a neat feature of math: the fact that we know everything beforehand, just that the information is not fully organised (we don't know all theorems).
Bottom-line? Falsifiability, when applied to mathematics, can only refer to conjectures, not axioms, not theorems (since they are mere consequences of axioms). Otherwise, the whole concept is ill-defined.
If a conjecture is an unproven theory, and proofs are comprised of a sequence of inferences, then the theory that some sequence of inferences constitute a proof is conjectural. If a new proof is produced which proves that the sequence is a proof, then we have a new unproven sequence, and so on, ad infinitum. Moreover, since proofs are, from time to time, discovered to be mistaken, including many which were presumed beyond question, perhaps the hard and fast distinction between conjectures and proven theories is somewhat rash. I prefer to think that every theory is conjectural, and that those which are traditionally said to be proven are simply conjectures that have been well-tested.
In any case, according to your broad definition of 'falsifiable', I disagree that axioms and theorems are unfalsifiable, since axioms can be inconsistent, and theorems can be mistaken.
intplee: Gabriel Munteanu, If a conjecture is an unproven theory, and proofs are comprised of a sequence of inferences, then the theory that some sequence of inferences constitute a proof is conjectural. If a new proof is produced which proves that the sequence is a proof, then we have a new unproven sequence, and so on, ad infinitum. Moreover, since proofs are, from time to time, discovered to be mistaken, including many which were presumed beyond question, perhaps the hard and fast distinction between conjectures and proven theories is somewhat rash. I prefer to think that every theory is conjectural, and that those which are traditionally said to be proven are simply conjectures that have been well-tested.
Agreed.
intplee: In any case, according to your broad definition of 'falsifiable', I disagree that axioms and theorems are unfalsifiable, since axioms can be inconsistent, and theorems can be mistaken.
I just meant falsifiability is seldom a necessary criterion for axioms and theorems. In the former case, they give rise to a contradiction quite easily, while in the second it is human error.
To contrast with physics, we usually judge an experiment's accuracy separately from the theory itself, so that is my rationale.
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