Faith and Reason: Incompatible or ????

[The Nehor]

Yep, fundamentally incompatible. You can have one or the other. Debate over.

[Glenn101]

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

10 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

 

On one hand you are aware of some of the discussions happening in the world of theoretical physics, but on the other hand you draw conclusions about what you've observed that are laughable.  Its like climate change deniers.  They put together various points of data about how different scientific studies have disagreed with each other, and their take away from putting all these disparate points together as that the whole enterprise of climate science is bogus and manufactured. 

I'll ask you one question.  Why do you think your novice knowledge about physics qualifies you to dismiss the work of brilliant experts in the field?

I have dismissed assertions Hawking and others that there is no God. That seems to be the only consensus among those theoretical theorists  I am sure that you are aware that one cannot prove a negative. So I have challenged you to produce something by Hawking to back up his theory that the universe was created spontaneously from nothing, violating the law of conservation of matter. You have declined to do so. I have pointed out what is happening in the world of theoretical physics and the problems that the people in that field are finding with different aspects of the theories that have come to the fore. Mathematical problems. That number 10 to the 229th power evidently is more impressive to them than it is to you. They admit that we live in an improbable universe, one fine tuned for life.

There are many competing theories about how the universe was formed. But the main takeaway is that a random formation aligning the atoms to form stars rests on some really really great odds. Those are not my conclusions and I even provided links which you have ignored.

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I'm not a black and white thinker.

I don't know about that. Your conversations with me have been pretty black and white.

Glenn

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

On one hand you are aware of some of the discussions happening in the world of theoretical physics, but on the other hand you draw conclusions about what you've observed that are laughable.  Its like climate change deniers.  They put together various points of data about how different scientific studies have disagreed with each other, and their take away from putting all these disparate points together as that the whole enterprise of climate science is bogus and manufactured. 

I'll ask you one question.  Why do you think your novice knowledge about physics qualifies you to dismiss the work of brilliant experts in the field?  

This is how I feel about your philosophical understanding and you call ME snarky?

I could use those exact words to you.

Totally uncalled for.

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, Glenn101 said:

I have dismissed assertions Hawking and others that there is no God. That seems to be the only consensus among those theoretical theorists  I am sure that you are aware that one cannot prove a negative. So I have challenged you to produce something by Hawking to back up his theory that the universe was created spontaneously from nothing, violating the law of conservation of matter. You have declined to do so. I have pointed out what is happening in the world of theoretical physics and the problems that the people in that field are finding with different aspects of the theories that have come to the fore. Mathematical problems. That number 10 to the 229th power evidently is more impressive to them than it is to you. They admit that we live in an improbable universe, one fine tuned for life.

There are many competing theories about how the universe was formed. But the main takeaway is that a random formation aligning the atoms to form stars rests on some really really great odds. Those are not my conclusions and I even provided links which you have ignored.

I don't know about that. Your conversations with me have been pretty black and white.

Glenn

I linked to an article earlier from Hawking that explains his views on the origins of the universe, I refer you back to that if you care to understand his position, which you are misunderstanding.  But that likely won't stop you from continuing to critique the experts based on your novice knowledge, which I think is unfortunate.  I follow the mainstream when it comes to science, and medicine and finance, and psychology and all the professions with which I have little expertise.  I suggest that you do the same.  

 

[hope_for_things]

4 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

This is how I feel about your philosophical understanding and you call ME snarky?

I could use those exact words to you.

Totally uncalled for.

Are you trying to police me lately or what?  Engage in the thread, don't just try to criticize me.  

Also, I've always been very forthright on my lack of knowledge on philosophy.  I continue to point out that I don't know Jack crap about it, and that I'm often confused by the arguments.  All I do when I engage with you on these topics is try to use my personal experience and reason to think through the problems presented, and I try to be receptive and learning in that process as well. I could go back a couple years and I have changed my opinions from when I first joined this message board based on what has influenced me over time. 

I've never found some fringe philosopher and linked to his evidence to refute any of your philosophical points.  I've never claimed that a mainstream philosophy idea that you've presented is worth dismissing.  That is essentially what Glenn is doing here.  You could call me out of the carpet if I ever did that, but I haven't.  

[mfbukowski]

26 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Are you trying to police me lately or what?  Engage in the thread, don't just try to criticize me.  

Also, I've always been very forthright on my lack of knowledge on philosophy.  I continue to point out that I don't know Jack crap about it, and that I'm often confused by the arguments.  All I do when I engage with you on these topics is try to use my personal experience and reason to think through the problems presented, and I try to be receptive and learning in that process as well. I could go back a couple years and I have changed my opinions from when I first joined this message board based on what has influenced me over time. 

I've never found some fringe philosopher and linked to his evidence to refute any of your philosophical points.  I've never claimed that a mainstream philosophy idea that you've presented is worth dismissing.  That is essentially what Glenn is doing here.  You could call me out of the carpet if I ever did that, but I haven't.  

Point taken!

[Glenn101]

45 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

2 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

 

I linked to an article earlier from Hawking that explains his views on the origins of the universe, I refer you back to that if you care to understand his position, which you are misunderstanding.  But that likely won't stop you from continuing to critique the experts based on your novice knowledge, which I think is unfortunate.  I follow the mainstream when it comes to science, and medicine and finance, and psychology and all the professions with which I have little expertise.  I suggest that you do the same.  

I read the article that you linked. As you said, it explained his views on the origins of the universe. I don't think I am completely misunderstanding his position, after all I was merely quoting him. I also have not been able to find anything that he has published on the matter where he has laid out his views on the creation of the universe mathematically. I may not really understand what he means by "nothing," though. But it was Hawking himself who said that an infinite number of universes is untestable. That is why he proposed a smaller set of universes, but again has produced no concrete set of experiments or mathematics with which to test his theory. Now, again, I am saying intead of sneering at me, find something from Hawking or from anyone that provides testable evidence for creating something from nothing. Einstien provided the world with the mathematics to back up his theories. This is a CFR.

Glenn

 

[hope_for_things]

18 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

I read the article that you linked. As you said, it explained his views on the origins of the universe. I don't think I am completely misunderstanding his position, after all I was merely quoting him. I also have not been able to find anything that he has published on the matter where he has laid out his views on the creation of the universe mathematically. I may not really understand what he means by "nothing," though. But it was Hawking himself who said that an infinite number of universes is untestable. That is why he proposed a smaller set of universes, but again has produced no concrete set of experiments or mathematics with which to test his theory. Now, again, I am saying intead of sneering at me, find something from Hawking or from anyone that provides testable evidence for creating something from nothing. Einstien provided the world with the mathematics to back up his theories. This is a CFR.

Glenn

 

I did provide that essay from Hawking which I thought was a good summary for a more general audiences.  I too have not delved into the mathematics on a technical side of things, which would be way over my head.  I also haven't been talking about specifics in a mathematical theorem sense, so I'm not sure exactly what claim I made that you're issuing a CFR for. 

And I wasn't attempting to sneer at you, just pointing out that unless you're a qualified expert in theoretical physics that dismissing the experts is a rather risky approach.  I personally try to listen to the experts especially when it comes to things that are highly technical about which I have no formal expertise.  I suspect you likely do the same in most aspects of your life and for example that you wouldn't dismiss the best science for how to treat diseases if you were inflicted by a disease.   Dismissing the mainstream thinking of theoretical physicists strikes me as similarly irresponsible to do.  

[Glenn101]

8 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I did provide that essay from Hawking which I thought was a good summary for a more general audiences.  I too have not delved into the mathematics on a technical side of things, which would be way over my head.  I also haven't been talking about specifics in a mathematical theorem sense, so I'm not sure exactly what claim I made that you're issuing a CFR for. 

I asked you to provide a reference where Hawking had actually done experimental work on his theory that the universe was created spontaneously, from nothing. As you noted, you nor I either one would be able to follow the math. But I am looking for something that he published and which had been reviewed. I have not been able to find anything so far where he actually did build a testable model. Maybe you can find such information.

9 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

And I wasn't attempting to sneer at you, just pointing out that unless you're a qualified expert in theoretical physics that dismissing the experts is a rather risky approach.  I personally try to listen to the experts especially when it comes to things that are highly technical about which I have no formal expertise.  I suspect you likely do the same in most aspects of your life and for example that you wouldn't dismiss the best science for how to treat diseases if you were inflicted by a disease.   Dismissing the mainstream thinking of theoretical physicists strikes me as similarly irresponsible to do.  

I said before, I am not dismissing any theory that has been able to be tested. When a physicist says that there is no God, he or she is stating a conclusion for something that is not testable. Nor is the existence of God testable either. When a physicist says that the creation of the universe did not require a God, a creator, then I would expect that such a statement should be backed up by something that is testable. All of my links were to theories, speculation, and mathematics by people working in the field of theoretical physics. They are the ones claiming that we live in an improbable universe. They are the ones that are looking for some explanation. They are the ones that are proposing theories such as an infifnite set of universes each with its own properties and that we are in the one that has all of the properties that allow life as we know it to exist. Dr. Lee Smolin is one of those physicists. He is a highly respected thoretical physicist himself. He is the one that came up with the 10 to the 39th power probability that this universe was aligned randomly by the laws of physics to produce stars, etc. He also knows that his theory as it currently stands is not testable. I linked to an article on Hawking where he also stated that an infinite number of universes is something that is not testable. He was proposing a smaller numer, a finite number that would be testable and I think had some proposals to try to set up a framework where it could be tested but I found no information as to where he or anyone else had actually done so. I found out that the popular string theory is not testable as of yet. I only searched sites that have no religious afiliations or discernible religious leanings and physicists that do not accept a God as a possible explanation, such as Doctor Smolin. Then there is the recent discovery of the identical symmetry between matter and anti-matter by scientists at CERN making even more puzzling the disparity between the amounts of matter and anti-matter produced by the Big Bang when the Standard Model predicts that there were equal amounts of matter and ant-matter produced.

In an earlier post you said that you did ot have a problem with people having faith, but that has not been my point. My point from all of this is that the odds this this universe forming on its own with all of the factors "fine tuned" for life are so great that absent any type of spiritual factors/experiences, etc. in the picture, faith/belief in a creator is very rational. That is all I have been arguing from the very beginning.

Glenn

[Glenn101]

20 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

And I wasn't attempting to sneer at you, just pointing out that unless you're a qualified expert in theoretical physics that dismissing the experts is a rather risky approach.  I personally try to listen to the experts especially when it comes to things that are highly technical about which I have no formal expertise.  I suspect you likely do the same in most aspects of your life and for example that you wouldn't dismiss the best science for how to treat diseases if you were inflicted by a disease.   Dismissing the mainstream thinking of theoretical physicists strikes me as similarly irresponsible to do.  

I have had some time to think through this a bit. I would ask you at this time since you feel it is irresponsible to dismiss the mainstream thinking of theoretical physicists, do you still accept the idea that there is a God? That is mainstream right now as evidenced by approving reviews of "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. In that book Dawkins rants that belief/faith is highly irrational.

At this point I would argue that to blindly follow the lead of mainstream theoretical phisicists, such as Dawkins and Hawking because they are brilliant and respected in their field and you (and I) do not have the training, bacground, etc. to is just as risky and even more irresponsible. (Remember the many warnings that people have pronounced about blindly following the prophets?)

Take this quote from his book "The Grand Design" by Hawking:

Quote

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing,"

Is that something that everyone should just throw up their arms and resignedly say "Game over." Or do we look for some kind of confirmation? Isn't that what science is about. Coming up with a theory and devising a testable hypothesis? This nothingness, as far as I can understand it, is a quantum nothingness. And that is something for which no testable framwork has been able to be devised.

Quote

Even if we move on to the multiverse, things still need to be formulated in terms of fields, energy, spacetime, derivatives, etc. Furthermore, scientific hypotheses need to be testable and falsifiable, and we don't yet know how to do this with a quantum fluctuation that generates a universe. (Marcello Gleiser, a qualified expert)

Then, after all of that idea of a quantum fluctuation, there is still the pesky problem of the remote proabability that any one such fluctuation would produce this universe.

There is mainstream and then there are many streams. And then there is the case of Pam Reynolds.

Glenn

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, Glenn101 said:

I have had some time to think through this a bit. I would ask you at this time since you feel it is irresponsible to dismiss the mainstream thinking of theoretical physicists, do you still accept the idea that there is a God? That is mainstream right now as evidenced by approving reviews of "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. In that book Dawkins rants that belief/faith is highly irrational.

At this point I would argue that to blindly follow the lead of mainstream theoretical phisicists, such as Dawkins and Hawking because they are brilliant and respected in their field and you (and I) do not have the training, bacground, etc. to is just as risky and even more irresponsible. (Remember the many warnings that people have pronounced about blindly following the prophets?)

Take this quote from his book "The Grand Design" by Hawking:

Ok, I don't think that Dawkins represents the mainstream views of physicists, he was a biologist and somewhat of a cultural phenomenon with his public advocacy for atheism.  It seems from my observations that most physisists aren't talking about the God question very much if at all, they are more interested in the mechanics of the universe. 

I don't see Hawking's statement antithetical to all conceptions of God.  I see what Hawking is saying is that he has an understanding of the mechanics of the origins of the universe and that these triggering events are explainable by the laws of nature, that they "can and will create themselves from nothing".  But couldn't a believer in God take what Hawking is saying and still believe in God, perhaps that God designed the laws of physics in a way that a universe could spontaneously be born.  Or perhaps a more Pantheist approach where God is the universe.  I guess it all depends on how you look at God and what that means to you.  

All I was trying to say is that I don't see a scenario where people have to completely give up a belief in God based on scientific understanding, they may need to change their conception of God, but that's happened throughout religious history.  We have multiple different conceptions of God represented in our Mormon scriptures as well.  Pick which representation works best for you and your understanding and experience in life.  Or pick no belief in God if that works best for you.  Just don't pick the vengeful destructive model of God, that one is demonstratively harmful to people that have this view of God.  The loving and charitable views of God are much better for individual health and for the culture at large.  

[Glenn101]

49 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Ok, I don't think that Dawkins represents the mainstream views of physicists, he was a biologist and somewhat of a cultural phenomenon with his public advocacy for atheism.  It seems from my observations that most physisists aren't talking about the God question very much if at all, they are more interested in the mechanics of the universe. 

I don't see Hawking's statement antithetical to all conceptions of God.  I see what Hawking is saying is that he has an understanding of the mechanics of the origins of the universe and that these triggering events are explainable by the laws of nature, that they "can and will create themselves from nothing".  But couldn't a believer in God take what Hawking is saying and still believe in God, perhaps that God designed the laws of physics in a way that a universe could spontaneously be born.  Or perhaps a more Pantheist approach where God is the universe.  I guess it all depends on how you look at God and what that means to you.  

All I was trying to say is that I don't see a scenario where people have to completely give up a belief in God based on scientific understanding, they may need to change their conception of God, but that's happened throughout religious history.  We have multiple different conceptions of God represented in our Mormon scriptures as well.  Pick which representation works best for you and your understanding and experience in life.  Or pick no belief in God if that works best for you.  Just don't pick the vengeful destructive model of God, that one is demonstratively harmful to people that have this view of God.  The loving and charitable views of God are much better for individual health and for the culture at large.  

Well, we are sort of on the same page here, and I will leave it at that. Thanks for the discussion. This is where it gets spiritual though, but my concept of God, a God of love, comes from those spiritual experiences.

Glenn

[mfbukowski]

5 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

I have had some time to think through this a bit. I would ask you at this time since you feel it is irresponsible to dismiss the mainstream thinking of theoretical physicists, do you still accept the idea that there is a God? That is mainstream right now as evidenced by approving reviews of "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. In that book Dawkins rants that belief/faith is highly irrational.

At this point I would argue that to blindly follow the lead of mainstream theoretical phisicists, such as Dawkins and Hawking because they are brilliant and respected in their field and you (and I) do not have the training, bacground, etc. to is just as risky and even more irresponsible. (Remember the many warnings that people have pronounced about blindly following the prophets?)

Take this quote from his book "The Grand Design" by Hawking:

Is that something that everyone should just throw up their arms and resignedly say "Game over." Or do we look for some kind of confirmation? Isn't that what science is about. Coming up with a theory and devising a testable hypothesis? This nothingness, as far as I can understand it, is a quantum nothingness. And that is something for which no testable framwork has been able to be devised.

Then, after all of that idea of a quantum fluctuation, there is still the pesky problem of the remote proabability that any one such fluctuation would produce this universe.

There is mainstream and then there are many streams. And then there is the case of Pam Reynolds.

Glenn

This only raises the question of how this "law" came to be, so I wouldn't worry about it.

The obvious reply to that would be" It just is."

And of course that reply explains nothing. It is as non falsifiable as "God created it."

That answer itself becomes a religious position, it is Faith in a proposition which has no verifiable evidence. 

When someone puts forth any proposition as true we should always question it's origin and why we can show it to be true. In my opinion a position like Rorty 's on the nature of truth is relevant both for Science and religion.

As a physicist Hawking was a natural positivist. I have shown why that is the case and earlier post. Positivism is dead. Nobody told Hawking.

It always comes down to the same issue.

Hawking's faith in Randomness was as strong as our faith in God, but we are supposed to believe it because he was a smart guy.

There are a lot of Smart Guys in this world that would totally disagree with him.

Believing it because Hocking said it was case. Is the same as believing it because the prophet said it's the case.

Dictated into my phone. Please forgive Oddities and spelling etc

Edited August 31, 2018 by mfbukowski

[hope_for_things]

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

This only raises the question of how this "law" came to be, so I wouldn't worry about it.

The obvious reply to that would be" It just is."

And of course that reply explains nothing. It is as non falsifiable as "God created it."

That answer itself becomes a religious position, it is Faith in a proposition which has no verifiable evidence. 

When someone puts forth any proposition as true we should always question it's origin and why we can show it to be true. In my opinion a position like Rorty 's on the nature of truth is relevant both for Science and religion.

As a physicist Hawking was a natural positivist. I have shown why that is the case and earlier post. Positivism is dead. Nobody told Hawking.

It always comes down to the same issue.

Hawking's faith in Randomness was as strong as our faith in God, but we are supposed to believe it because he was a smart guy.

There are a lot of Smart Guys in this world that would totally disagree with him.

Believing it because Hocking said it was case. Is the same as believing it because the prophet said it's the case.

Dictated into my phone. Please forgive Oddities and spelling etc

I wonder whether even thinking in these terms that a law came to be, like it had a point in time that it was brought into being, is even the right question to ask.  It seems to impose a certain cultural construct that looks at things in terms of linear time and creation events to everything we see.  

I'm not sure why you apply the positivism is dead idea to theoretical physicists.  Do philosophers that talk this way, openly criticize the hard sciences?  Is there a tension between these camps that I'm not aware of?  I wonder if this isn't just professional jockying akin to how there are typically battles between the finance and marketing folks in business.  (I'm a finance guy myself)

I would say positivism is alive and working really well in many paradigms for very pragmatic purposes.  Aren't you also a fan of pragmatism?  

I don't see faith in randomness as the same as faith in God.  The evidence for randomness can be explained using mathematics.  The evidence for God cannot, and doesn't cohere to any systematic, measurable explanation.  That is a huge difference.  If evidence for God did follow a demonstrable and testable pattern across cultures and time, then we'd have something religiously we could evaluate.  As is, the evidence for God is subjective, relative, based on personal testimony and largely not testable. 

Its just a different kind of evidence.  Like love.  Love is wonderful and I wouldn't trade my love for a calculator, no way.  Faith in love is not the same as faith in my calculator.  They both work by completely different means.  

[clarkgoble]

Just to make the analytic point that unless you clarify the semantics of what you mean by faith or reason you'll just be equivocating.

[mfbukowski]

14 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

I wonder whether even thinking in these terms that a law came to be, like it had a point in time that it was brought into being, is even the right question to ask.  It seems to impose a certain cultural construct that looks at things in terms of linear time and creation events to everything we see.  

I'm not sure why you apply the positivism is dead idea to theoretical physicists.  Do philosophers that talk this way, openly criticize the hard sciences?  Is there a tension between these camps that I'm not aware of?  I wonder if this isn't just professional jockying akin to how there are typically battles between the finance and marketing folks in business.  (I'm a finance guy myself)

I would say positivism is alive and working really well in many paradigms for very pragmatic purposes.  Aren't you also a fan of pragmatism?  

I don't see faith in randomness as the same as faith in God.  The evidence for randomness can be explained using mathematics.  The evidence for God cannot, and doesn't cohere to any systematic, measurable explanation.  That is a huge difference.  If evidence for God did follow a demonstrable and testable pattern across cultures and time, then we'd have something religiously we could evaluate.  As is, the evidence for God is subjective, relative, based on personal testimony and largely not testable. 

Its just a different kind of evidence.  Like love.  Love is wonderful and I wouldn't trade my love for a calculator, no way.  Faith in love is not the same as faith in my calculator.  They both work by completely different means.  

We already covered the fact that physics is positivism. Go back and check or I'll look it up again when I have time.

It's okay though because visit physics is supposed to be positivism.

It is aware of its own assumptions.

The point is there are other ways of looking at the world.

[hope_for_things]

3 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

We already covered the fact that physics is positivism. Go back and check or I'll look it up again when I have time.

It's okay though because visit physics is supposed to be positivism.

It is aware of its own assumptions.

The point is there are other ways of looking at the world.

Ok, but then why do you say that positivism is dead and that Hawking didn't know it?  If we agree that physics and the hard sciences and all they produce, which is vast and of significant import for the human race, is all based on positivism how can you say its dead?

For something that is dead, its sure working pretty good from my view.  Maybe we should kill a bunch of other ideas to get them to work better.   

[hope_for_things]

19 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Just to make the analytic point that unless you clarify the semantics of what you mean by faith or reason you'll just be equivocating.

Clark,

Help me out then here, you're much better at discussing these things with MFB than I am.  He gets me all twisted around in my thinking sometimes (my fault due to my puny brain).  I'm trying to follow a consistent line of reasoning, but its hard for me to keep everything straight.  Do you have any thoughts on this matter, I value your perspective as well.  

[mfbukowski]

48 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Ok, but then why do you say that positivism is dead and that Hawking didn't know it?  If we agree that physics and the hard sciences and all they produce, which is vast and of significant import for the human race, is all based on positivism how can you say its dead?

For something that is dead, its sure working pretty good from my view.  Maybe we should kill a bunch of other ideas to get them to work better.   

http://positivists.org/blog/archives/2981

Of course Hawking didn't know it.  He was a physicist- what do you expect?  He WAS a positivist by definition.

I am not saying he did not read an article about it- but it was against his religion to even consider it as a possibility.

His religion? Positivism.  Yours as well apparently? 

Math is a language.  You have to squish reality to make it fit into math.

I really don't have much more to say about it.

I suppose I could post this video yet again.

Sigh.  Sorry folks

 

Edited August 31, 2018 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, hope_for_things said:

I wonder whether even thinking in these terms that a law came to be, like it had a point in time that it was brought into being, is even the right question to ask.  It seems to impose a certain cultural construct that looks at things in terms of linear time and creation events to everything we see.  

Indeed!

Same as the "cultural construct" as it did NOT have a time it was "brought into being"!!

All we HAVE are cultural constructs and that is the entire point you cannot seem to understand.   There is no truth there are only some ideas that work better for different purposes than others.

I don't care if there WAS "a time" or NOT- because I know either way it is a cultural construct!!!!

That construct works for some things and does not work for others!!

Play that Rorty again and again at least until you get it- you don't have to agree but at this point you have no comprehension of what he is even saying.

Better yet do me a favor- make a transcription of the short Rorty video above and I will explain every word of it.  Deal?

Edited August 31, 2018 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

There are always social constructs that hold together the observations

Edited August 31, 2018 by mfbukowski

[MiserereNobis]

23 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I suppose I could post this video yet again.

You and that damn video  It's how you bear your testimony of pragmatism 😂

[mfbukowski]

17 hours ago, MiserereNobis said:

You and that damn video  It's how you bear your testimony of pragmatism 😂

Don't worry, no one listens to it anyway.

They just keep on asking the same questions over and over. If they listened,they would convert instantly.

😎

I know the church is true would become their favorite sentence.

You talk about faith and reason? That's it right there. Nothing more to say.

 

 

Edited September 2, 2018 by mfbukowski

[Daniel Peterson]

On August 27, 2018 at 4:21 PM, hope_for_things said:

I probably won't read the article from Dan because his approach typically grades on me. 

That's the spirit!

[hope_for_things]

On 8/31/2018 at 4:14 PM, mfbukowski said:

On 8/31/2018 at 3:26 PM, hope_for_things said:

Ok, but then why do you say that positivism is dead and that Hawking didn't know it?  If we agree that physics and the hard sciences and all they produce, which is vast and of significant import for the human race, is all based on positivism how can you say its dead?

For something that is dead, its sure working pretty good from my view.  Maybe we should kill a bunch of other ideas to get them to work better.   

http://positivists.org/blog/archives/2981

Of course Hawking didn't know it.  He was a physicist- what do you expect?  He WAS a positivist by definition.

I am not saying he did not read an article about it- but it was against his religion to even consider it as a possibility.

His religion? Positivism.  Yours as well apparently? 

Math is a language.  You have to squish reality to make it fit into math.

I really don't have much more to say about it.

I suppose I could post this video yet again.

I understand what you're saying that in an ultimate philosophical sense that positivism is dead.  But we should acknowledge that its not dead for the hard sciences, and in that sense I wonder why you continue to emphasize that positivism is dead, when it works really well from a practical application perspective in just about everything we do. 

It seems to me that this philosophical thought exercise shouldn't be used to critique physics and math.  Why are you using it as a criticism of the hard sciences?