Epistemology 101

[R_Daneel]

various religions have their own cosmologies, none having anything to do with the ontology of existence.

You miss the point. The fact is that this hypothetical “X-existence” is simply undefined.

as to the idea that no effect is seen in what you call P-existence, i would point to free will, self awareness, etc

And you would be wrong. Even if you were right (and you are not), you would still give no explanation about the “how”.

i wonder why you would separate existence into these categories without first making some assumption of an empirical statement. simply saying ‘P-existence’ indicates that you feel this is a separate category for some reason from other things that exist. if you are not making an empirical statement, then why make the distinction?

Because it is a useful set of categories. It separates the different type of existence, into simple, easy to understand categories (with the exception of “X-existence” - which is not defined).

we divide reality by contingency, necessity, actuality, potentiality, et, al. most of these apply to any being without the need to make distinctions.

Maybe you do, but I do not. I don’t accept the artificial and meaningless distinction of “necessary” and “contingent”. I definitely deny the validity of “potential existence”, because that is simply an oxymoron. If something does not exist, but it may exist, then it simply belongs to the “C-existence” category. Something either exists physically, or it exists as a concept, or it exists in a manner, which does not belong to either one of these categories (it has “X-existence”).

If there could be a meaningful conversation, then first and foremost the hypothetical “X-existence” needs to be defined, so we all can know what are we talking about.

 

[R_Daneel]

Well, to be honest, I wasn’t even thinking about Plato. But I would hope it were obvious to you that a thing’s existence is separate from its definition. That is to say, in order for you to define something, it must exist first. Otherwise, the definition is not objective and is entirely subjective. Then, universal skepticism might very well be legitimate.

No it does not. We can sit down and agree on a definition of “xupoaral” to mean a hypothetical being, which has scales and feathers, which breathes pure metane, and can sing. It is between you and me. If we agree on this definition, then the word “xupoaral” will be meaningful to us, and to no one else.

If I said that a circle is not a set of points equidistant from a given center, then that would be an incorrect, false and invalid definition because it is not true the nature of a circle, which is thought to be an objective reality.

First, if you did that, then you would simply develop your own terminology, which would be meaningless to everyone else. If you could convince others to accept your terminology, you would have a new language. Second, a circle is not part of “objective physical reality”, it is part of “objective conceptual reality”. And concepts can be whatever we agree on them to be. There is no such thing as objective meaning. The meaning of a word is whatever we agree upon. Of course, the more people agree on a specific meaning, the more useful that word will become.

Since you are a mathematician, you must assume that the nature of a circle is an objective reality. It is a necessary postulate of mathematics. And if it is an objective reality, then there must be definitions that both accurately (truly) and inaccurately (falsely) describe this reality. If you maintain that there is no such thing as true and false definitions, then you are claiming that the things that are defined by definitions are entirely subjective. That would not be a good position for you to hold.

Yes, the meaning of the definiton is totally subjective, unless we agree to speak of the same thing. You say “two” I say “zwei”. What causes these two words refer to the same thing? Our agreement, nothing else.

 

[Image_of_God]

No it does not. We can sit down and agree on a definition of “xupoaral” to mean a hypothetical being, which has scales and feathers, which breathes pure metane, and can sing. It is between you and me. If we agree on this definition, then the word “xupoaral” will be meaningful to us, and to no one else.

If xupoaral is not an objective reality then you are talking about something much different. If it were an objective reality, then it would not matter how you defined it as long as you remained true to the properties which it possesses. Let me ask you this: Is a bird its definition?

First, if you did that, then you would simply develop your own terminology, which would be meaningless to everyone else. If you could convince others to accept your terminology, you would have a new language. Second, a circle is not part of “objective physical reality”, it is part of “objective conceptual reality”. And concepts can be whatever we agree on them to be. There is no such thing as objective meaning. The meaning of a word is whatever we agree upon. Of course, the more people agree on a specific meaning, the more useful that word will become.

I think you are saying something here that even you yourself do not believe. Is the definition of a circle everywhere and at all times true? Are you limiting the concept of a circle to how many people believe it to be true?

So you mean to tell me that (the definition of four) 4 is equal to two plus two and three plus one based on how many people can agree on it?

If you actually admit to what you’re saying, then you indirectly confirm what I’ve been saying to you for weeks and which you refused to acknowledge(that the axioms are true because they are believed to be true).

Yes, the meaning of the definiton is totally subjective, unless we agree to speak of the same thing. You say “two” I say “zwei”. What causes these two words refer to the same thing? Our agreement, nothing else.

A circle does not cease to be a circle because most people begin not agree on it (at least I truly hope that is what you believe as a mathematician). If you hold that position, then your philosophy is in shambles. If you believe what you believe to be true, then you need to believe that it is objective. That’s why moral relativism is a contradiction.

While the choice of words are arbitrary, they define the same objective reality. “Two” and “deux” are said to have the same meaning because they both define the same quantity. That quantity is objective.

This certainly does come as a surprise to me, especially from a mathematician.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

You miss the point. The fact is that this hypothetical “X-existence” is simply undefined.

this isnt mathematics, being undefined has no particular meaning to us. maybe you could use a different term, because i understand ‘defined’ ‘undefined’ et al. to be meaningful as in meeting a certain standard of ‘meaning’. in math i assume this to be delivering a quantifiable result, sometimes one of a particuar kind, rational, or irrational, etc.

if you are literally saying it has no meaning, than what is this standard of meaning you think it should meet?

And you would be wrong.

im pretty sure i can demonstrate that free will is incompatible with either of the 2 possible states of the universe…

Even if you were right (and you are not), you would still give no explanation about the “how”.

clarkes 3rd law.

it might look like magic, but it isnt. there is a rational explanation, that doesnt equate to a physical explanation.

Maybe you do, but I do not. I don’t accept the artificial and meaningless distinction of “necessary” and “contingent”.

i think they are rather organic, but obviously some things do not exist without a cause, for instance you and i. which makes necessary our cause. our parents.

I definitely deny the validity of “potential existence”, because that is simply an oxymoron. If something does not exist, but it may exist, then it simply belongs to the “C-existence” category.

thats not exactly what it means, its something more along the lines of things that are possible, but have not occured.

Something either exists physically, or it exists as a concept,

now that it occurs to me, how do you define C-existence? it would seem to be as undefined as X-existence. if i understand what you mean.

playing the devils advocate, this statement seems to reduce to things either exist physically or they do not exist.

im a bit of a nominalist when it comes to the idea of C-existence, ive always thought such things were indistinct in the general existence, having no being separate from the being of the holder of the concept. as though i were to asay my arm has some different kind of existence from my knee.

or it exists in a manner, which does not belong to either one of these categories (it has “X-existence”).

If there could be a meaningful conversation, then first and foremost the hypothetical “X-existence” needs to be defined, so we all can know what are we talking about.

we can hardly be expected to define the categories that you made. dont we have the same problem as above with C-existence? isnt it essentially reducible to the same thing? if not.

how would you define it? how do you consider that it differs in kind from P or C existence?

im all for coming to a definition, but obviously, said definition is in relation to the other categories you propose.

 

[Image_of_God]

To add: If I said that a circle is the set of all points, you would say that I was wrong. Why?

And even if we never agreed about what a circle was, you would still hold onto your definition of what it was. Why?

You see, a circle always was what it was, even before man could define it. Definitions are man’s perceptions of objective realities. Hence, you cannot entirely define anything.

 

[bdelykleon]

Just how someone can get to know:

1. Numbers. Do we have to experience π to know it? or imaginary numbers, or 34,223,102…
2. Moral values. Why murder is bad? Do we need to be murdered or to be cheated to know it is bad?
3. Language itself has an internal grammar immutable to all human beings. We may learn English or Chinese, but the basic grammar is inate.
4. Logic Rules. How do we get to know a syllogism, or the principle of non-contradiction? A ~ not-A?
5. Aesthetic values. Why ia a painting by Vermeer gorgeous and the urinal of Duchamp repulsive?

Not everything comes from the senses. Extreme, tabula rasa mind is one of the few things proven wrong in philosophy.

So, well, you failed Epistemology 101.

 

[Hooding_Trees]

100%

Exactly, so there is no ‘random chance’. The point being that the fact that the generator is random has no bearing, as the selecting mechanism is not.

 

[Hooding_Trees]

How do I know it has been debunked? If it had it would be headline news considering that this position is shared by the vast majority of people in the world… Produce your evidence.

No more headline news than the earth is round…

 

[Sarpedon]

R Daneel,

Your presentation of epistemology is simplistic. Your description of atheistic epistemology is basically correct but you leave out the fact that such an epistemology is firmly in the particular. Your description of theistic epistemology is wrong because the postulates are not randomly selected, but selected for a variety of debatable reasons, just like in science.

I’ve plugged for Etienne Gilson’s book The Unity of Philosophical Experience before. This book is primarily a meditation on the nature of metaphysics by studying the history of philosophy. Gilson points out that every time a philosophy is created which is wholly based upon a single concrete thing or idea as the axiom that everything is built around, the philosophy fails and skepticism appears. This happens in many different ways. St. Bonaventure tried to build philosophy around the power of God, and his efforts failed and hurt Christianity. Descartes tried to built his philosophy around the power of mathematical reasoning, and his philosophy failed and lead to skepticism. Comte tried to built his philosophy around the power of sociology, and his attempt actually destroyed science in the process. All of these philosophies and historical cycles fall prey to the same thing: trying to solve the first principal (the object of metaphysics) in light of some particular thing or method.

The modern day experiment with science is merely another manifestation of this same error. The modern scientist tries to explain the whole of reality in terms of matter and material causes, but this fails to account for the nature of such things in the first place. We are already observing the breakdown of this philosophy and the road to skepticism- for relativism is already dominant in the public forum.

Gilson argues that the way out of this trap is to accept the first principal as being itself, which is not tied to any particular thing. What this means is that the ultimate explanation of everything falls back on the simple and basic fact that we have the intuition of being, of existence (sort of), in the first place. Obviously, such a general thing cannot explain things very deeply. That’s why Gilson argues that the proper next step from the intuition of being as the first principal is to examine the way that this being manifests itself to us. That’s why we study science as a particular manifestation of this being, why we study logic as a particular manifestation, and we study art as a particular manifestation, etc. In regards to your initial post, the problem in your analysis is that you assume that there is nothing wrong with asserting the particular atheistic “axioms” as sufficient explanatory principals and that you assume that theists adopt other axioms at random. Gilson argues that such methods in the particular should not be the axioms themselves, but rather the intuition of being in the first place should be the first principal. Moving on from that, we can then examine the different ways that that being can be intelligible.

In my own analysis, this has a few major effects on atheistic epistemology. One is that atheism restricts the intelligibility of being far beyond the normal human experience of intelligibility. Mankind has always engaged in intelligibility through art, literature, music, reasoning, thinking, observation, and experiment, among other things. I see no real reason to restrict intelligibility to observation and experiment alone. You have many reasons to do so in light of materialism, but that’s part of Gilson’s point- human philosophy and understanding breaks down when some method or thing in the particular is held as the first principal instead of the basic intuition of being.

Another effect is that the mere acceptance of the intuition of being involves the acceptance of an ultimate principal that does not sit well with the standard conception of atheism. In other words, while you may choose to enshrine the material order as the ultimate principal, in effect you enshrine the material order as your “god.” As you can probably guess, Christian theism (in a simplified sense) identifies being as God- I AM WHO AM.

This is very incomplete, for I’m only an undergrad. Nevertheless, I’d encourage you to read Gilson to get a better sense of what I am talking about.

 

[tonyrey]

Funnily enough, none of research hypothesizes the reality of persons, truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty or love - which you are obviously prepared to discard in favour of purposeless particles… Your blind faith in science won’t do you any good when it comes to solving your personal problems…

No response!

I am not sure if it was on this thread or another, however it has already been clearly explained to you why this sort of reductionist approach fails.

You are the one who has espoused reductionism! I believe in the reality of persons, truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty or love whereas you don’t. Instead of referring to an obscure explanation it would be more to the point to explain it yourself.

No response!

It is one thing to argue one’s point, it is another to continue to argue from a position that has been clearly debunked.

How do I know it has been debunked? If it had it would be headline news considering that this position is shared by the vast majority of people in the world… Produce your evidence.No more headline news than the earth is round…

You are wrong. The vast majority of people in the world do not believe they are just biological machines which exist by chance for no reason or purpose.

Produce your evidence…

 

[Hooding_Trees]

No response!

No response!

You are wrong. The vast majority of people in the world do not believe they are just biological machines which exist by chance for no reason or purpose.

Produce your evidence…

No response? It seems you have selective reading.

which you are obviously prepared to discard in favour of purposeless particles

*"When units of biological material are put together, the properties of the new material are not always additive, or equal to the sum of the properties of the components. Instead, at each level, new properties and rules emerge that cannot be predicted by observations and full knowledge of the lower levels. Such properties are called emergent properties (Novikoff, 1945).

As an example of why the reductionist approach fails, consider the function of one cell within a multicellular organism. Even if we understand the cell’s function, that does not mean we fully understand the organism’s physiology. After all, the activity of each cell is affected by the activity of other cells in the tissues, organs, and organ systems within the organism. The cell is thus no longer in isolation, and its integration into a system provides that system with emergent properties (Novikoff, 1945)."*

You are wrong. The vast majority of people in the world do not believe they are just biological machines which exist by chance for no reason or purpose.

The vast majority of the world is also uneducated. I couldn’t care less what the vast majority believe. So feel free to side with uneducated African bushmen, however know one thing the majority of the most educated people on earth agree with me…

"A study has shown atheism in the west to be particularly prevalent among scientists, a tendency already quite marked at the beginning of the 20th century, developing into a dominant one during the course of the century. In 1914, James H. Leuba found that 58% of 1,000 randomly selected U.S. natural scientists expressed “disbelief or doubt in the existence of God” (defined as a personal God which interacts directly with human beings). The same study, repeated in 1996, gave a similar percentage of 60.7%; this number is 93% among the members of the National Academy of Sciences."

 

[R_Daneel]

Just how someone can get to know:

1. Numbers. Do we have to experience π to know it? or imaginary numbers, or 34,223,102…
2. Moral values. Why murder is bad? Do we need to be murdered or to be cheated to know it is bad?
3. Language itself has an internal grammar immutable to all human beings. We may learn English or Chinese, but the basic grammar is inate.
4. Logic Rules. How do we get to know a syllogism, or the principle of non-contradiction? A ~ not-A?
5. Aesthetic values. Why ia a painting by Vermeer gorgeous and the urinal of Duchamp repulsive?

Not everything comes from the senses. Extreme, tabula rasa mind is one of the few things proven wrong in philosophy.

So, well, you failed Epistemology 101.

Actually, no. No one says that everything comes DIRECTLY from the senses. No one ever saw a unicorn. But people have seen horses, people have seen antlers, and they combined the two concepts to arrive at a new concept.

Concepts have their own hierarchy. Some are reflections on the physical world. This is the primary level. Some are abstractions and generalizations of the physical world. Others are fully imaginary. (This list is not exhaustive).

 

[R_Daneel]

Another effect is that the mere acceptance of the intuition of being involves the acceptance of an ultimate principal that does not sit well with the standard conception of atheism. In other words, while you may choose to enshrine the material order as the ultimate principal, in effect you enshrine the material order as your “god.” As you can probably guess, Christian theism (in a simplified sense) identifies being as God- I AM WHO AM.

Your probably wanted to say “principle”. Yes, the ultimate principle of existence is STEM for the materialists. Space, time, energy and matter. They see no reason to look any further. Everything is explainable - in actuality or potentially - using only the framework of STEM as a basic principle.

This thread was submitted with a hypothetical deviation from this principle. The materialist principle is “suspended”, to allow a discussion of other principles. It does not go very well, I am afraid.

 

[Thing]

R Daneel:

This is where the atheists stop. Theists go one step further.

1. Knowledge of information about the alleged supernatural. This is your territory. I have no epistemological methods, except the ones described above. If you wish to offer one, please do so. The requirement is simple. It should be an objective method, which can be executed by anyone, and which will allow a skeptic to reach the same conclusion as a believer. It cannot demand the a-priori acceptance of anything, except some offered axioms - if the method offered is axiomatically founded. Maybe it is, maybe not. I would not know until you actually offer it. If your offered method employs any or all of the methods described above, then I expect to use them as they are, or give reasons why you wish to deviate from those methods. If you wish to criticize the methods above, feel free to do so.
   ?

• Study [read about] the proposition at hand.
• Prayer.

 

[Hooding_Trees]

Prayer.

People that believe in prayer are either ignorant of, or have closed their minds from, the evidence.

For example…

*"Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found.

And patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications like abnormal heart rhythms, perhaps because of the expectations the prayers created, the researchers suggested.

Because it is the most scientifically rigorous investigation of whether prayer can heal illness, the study, begun almost a decade ago and involving more than 1,800 patients, has for years been the subject of speculation."*

nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html

 

[R_Daneel]

this isnt mathematics, being undefined has no particular meaning to us. maybe you could use a different term, because i understand ‘defined’ ‘undefined’ et al. to be meaningful as in meeting a certain standard of ‘meaning’. in math i assume this to be delivering a quantifiable result, sometimes one of a particuar kind, rational, or irrational, etc.

if you are literally saying it has no meaning, than what is this standard of meaning you think it should meet?

The concept of “definition” is not restricted to mathematics. If we would talk about a unicorn, and I would have never encountered the concept of a unicorn, I would request to be given a definition - just what IS a unicorn. Stands to reason.

im pretty sure i can demonstrate that free will is incompatible with either of the 2 possible states of the universe…

I have seen this demonstration before, and I remain unimpressed. But that problem does not belong here.

clarkes 3rd law.

I really, really, really wish you would stop this. Clarke’s 3rd law only goes in one direction. And this has been pointed out many times. Yes, I used a shocking example to show it, and you were outraged but did not answer it. Just think: if there is no magic, if we, humans can eventually reach that “sufficiently advanced technology” - then you quickly eliminated God from the picture. Who needs God, if we, humans have God-like power or technology? If that “sufficiently advanced technology” is unattainable for us, then it is still magic, and will stay magic forever. Clarke’s law does NOT say that anything, that “looks like” magic, must be the result of a sufficiently advanced technology.

i think they are rather organic, but obviously some things do not exist without a cause, for instance you and i. which makes necessary our cause. our parents.

Undoubtedly. But in a logical chain A->B->C “B” is both necessary and contingent based upon the chain we look at. The dichotomy of necessary/contingent is only meaningful “locally”.

thats not exactly what it means, its something more along the lines of things that are possible, but have not occured.

Which is irrelevant. It is nonsensical to subdivide “nonexistence”.

now that it occurs to me, how do you define C-existence? it would seem to be as undefined as X-existence. if i understand what you mean.

Well, that is a legitimate question. C-existence is not as simple as straightforward as P-existence. P-existence is limited in space and time, it is composed of STEM. It is directly (or indirectly) available to the senses (or their extentions).

C-existence is not STEM-based - in the sense that the concept of a horse cannot be observed, touched, felt, etc. Concepts have their own hierarchy. They can be subdivided into categories of their own. But they have something in common, they are mental constructs, abstractions. If there would be no conscious beings, there would be no abstractions.

Some philosophers disagree with that. They say that concepts are “abstract objects”, which exist independently from the mind. And at first sight, this view sounds sensible. After all the concept of “two” is the same, no matter what label we use to describe it. (Numbers are the ultimate abstractions of reality). Those philosophers say that we don’t “invent” concepts, we “discover” them. However, this view implodes if we start to examine it in detail. “Hamlet” (the play) is a concept, which manifests itself in a written form, or it is performed on the stage, which was translated into many languages. To say that Shakespeare simply “discovered” the objectively existing abstract concept of “Hamlet” instead of “making it up” is sheer nonsense.

The subdivision of C-existence goes like this: direct concepts about the actual reality (the concept of a horse). Generalized concepts about reality (the concept of an animal). Concepts about concepts (philosophy). Concepts about totally imaginary “things” (Hamlet, fairies, etc.). Now we do have a lot of concepts about the X-existence. But those different concepts are vague, somethimes downright nonsensical. Just what is this X-existence supposed to be?

To sum it up: “C-existence is the set of mental constructs or abstractions”. Is this what you had in mind?

 

[Thing]

People that believe in prayer are either ignorant of, or have closed their minds from, the evidence.

For example…

*"Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found.

And patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications like abnormal heart rhythms, perhaps because of the expectations the prayers created, the researchers suggested.

Because it is the most scientifically rigorous investigation of whether prayer can heal illness, the study, begun almost a decade ago and involving more than 1,800 patients, has for years been the subject of speculation."*

nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html

Just a couple of things.

1. You shall not put the lord your God to the test. Whether trying to put Good under a microscope to see if he will heal pat but not heal john is a little bit sick-minded, I think. What response would you expect from the Creator of everything, will He comply and heal pat but let john suffer so you get some study results to publish in the NYT.
2. All the people, prayed for and non-prayed for, recovered it seems according to the wish expressed in the prayer, and the differences between the groups was most likely natural differences.
3. We are talking about knowledge and understanding now, not about healing the sick.

People that believe in prayer are either ignorant of, or have closed their minds from, the evidence.

You must not close your mind to the reason why most people pray, namely, because they find their prayers have had an effect for them.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

R Daneel,

Your presentation of epistemology is simplistic. Your description of atheistic epistemology is basically correct but you leave out the fact that such an epistemology is firmly in the particular. Your description of theistic epistemology is wrong because the postulates are not randomly selected, but selected for a variety of debatable reasons, just like in science.

I’ve plugged for Etienne Gilson’s book The Unity of Philosophical Experience before. This book is primarily a meditation on the nature of metaphysics by studying the history of philosophy. Gilson points out that every time a philosophy is created which is wholly based upon a single concrete thing or idea as the axiom that everything is built around, the philosophy fails and skepticism appears. This happens in many different ways. St. Bonaventure tried to build philosophy around the power of God, and his efforts failed and hurt Christianity. Descartes tried to built his philosophy around the power of mathematical reasoning, and his philosophy failed and lead to skepticism. Comte tried to built his philosophy around the power of sociology, and his attempt actually destroyed science in the process. All of these philosophies and historical cycles fall prey to the same thing: trying to solve the first principal (the object of metaphysics) in light of some particular thing or method.

The modern day experiment with science is merely another manifestation of this same error. The modern scientist tries to explain the whole of reality in terms of matter and material causes, but this fails to account for the nature of such things in the first place. We are already observing the breakdown of this philosophy and the road to skepticism- for relativism is already dominant in the public forum.

Gilson argues that the way out of this trap is to accept the first principal as being itself, which is not tied to any particular thing. What this means is that the ultimate explanation of everything falls back on the simple and basic fact that we have the intuition of being, of existence (sort of), in the first place. Obviously, such a general thing cannot explain things very deeply. That’s why Gilson argues that the proper next step from the intuition of being as the first principal is to examine the way that this being manifests itself to us. That’s why we study science as a particular manifestation of this being, why we study logic as a particular manifestation, and we study art as a particular manifestation, etc. In regards to your initial post, the problem in your analysis is that you assume that there is nothing wrong with asserting the particular atheistic “axioms” as sufficient explanatory principals and that you assume that theists adopt other axioms at random. Gilson argues that such methods in the particular should not be the axioms themselves, but rather the intuition of being in the first place should be the first principal. Moving on from that, we can then examine the different ways that that being can be intelligible.

In my own analysis, this has a few major effects on atheistic epistemology. One is that atheism restricts the intelligibility of being far beyond the normal human experience of intelligibility. Mankind has always engaged in intelligibility through art, literature, music, reasoning, thinking, observation, and experiment, among other things. I see no real reason to restrict intelligibility to observation and experiment alone. You have many reasons to do so in light of materialism, but that’s part of Gilson’s point- human philosophy and understanding breaks down when some method or thing in the particular is held as the first principal instead of the basic intuition of being.

Another effect is that the mere acceptance of the intuition of being involves the acceptance of an ultimate principal that does not sit well with the standard conception of atheism. In other words, while you may choose to enshrine the material order as the ultimate principal, in effect you enshrine the material order as your “god.” As you can probably guess, Christian theism (in a simplified sense) identifies being as God- I AM WHO AM.

This is very incomplete, for I’m only an undergrad. Nevertheless, I’d encourage you to read Gilson to get a better sense of what I am talking about.

excellent, wish i could explain things this eloquently.

 

[Hooding_Trees]

Just a couple of things.

1. You shall not put the lord your God to the test. Whether trying to put Good under a microscope to see if he will heal pat but not heal john is a little bit sick-minded, I think. What response would you expect from the Creator of everything, will He comply and heal pat but let john suffer so you get some study results to publish in the NYT.

You would think that god would just not pay any attention to the study, what you are saying is that the fact that we studied made god deliberately fix the results so as to hid his existence. I that is called deceit, and apparently your god is not capable of that.

You can of course come up with all sorts of excuses as to why the results ended up the way the did. Lets be honest though, we know why… Prayer does not work.

 

[Thing]

You would think that god would just not pay any attention to the study, what you are saying is that the fact that we studied made god deliberately fix the results so as to hid his existence. I that is called deceit, and apparently your god is not capable of that.

You can of course come up with all sorts of excuses as to why the results ended up the way the did. Lets be honest though, we know why… Prayer does not work.

Those doctors said they have loads of stories of prayer working for patients.

God said, if I remember correctly, he was hidden from the learned and the wise and revealed himself to those simple souls, like little children.
Do you think, conversely, that you could test for the devils existance with a similar test. Are these subjects being tested actually superintelligences well able for puny human tests. I do not think you will back God into a corner with a test-tube and beaker.

I also notice you are drawing away from the original point R Daneel said, he would try anything we suggested to acquire knowledge. My suggestion was study and prayer. It applies to you also, you could try study and prayer yourself as it falls well within R Daneels acceptable requirements for taking action.