Well, I don’t know about you, but I am aware the difference between facts (what I KNOW) and hypotheses.
So the logical implication is that defining facts as "what I KNOW” means that by definition “facts” can only be what you know. So nothing can be true that you do not know?
The other problem is that you might be mistaken and, therefore, what you think you know is not correctly described as a “fact.”
How would you “know” that you are mistaken when you think you are in possession of the “facts?”
Ah, the good, old fallacy called “argumentum ad ignoratiam”. If only I had a dollar for every instance this idiocy was offered, I would be a pretty wealthy person. There are many ridiculous arguments around here, but the “argument from ignorance” is probably the dumbest one of all. A “miracle” is defined as some event that is contrary to the known laws of nature.
Except that my argument was not an argument from ignorance, it was an argument from the absolute certainty that any human observer does not possess the wherewithal to conclude, as you do, that all events necessarily fall under or are controlled by the known laws of physics.
A cat comes to sit on my lap. To which “laws of nature” can we ascribe the cat’s motives and know with certainty the reason why the cat did so? You can make an educated guess, but that is all it would be. The cat’s action is not derivable from any “law” of nature. WHY any event occurs is not susceptible to laws of nature, because laws of nature do not ultimately explain and cannot ultimately explain reasons for an event. Laws of nature only address the “means by which” the event occurred.
The laws of gravity and motion, for example, merely describe the attraction that exists between material entities but these laws do not explain WHY attraction exists, only THAT it does. There is no tenet in the law of gravity to explain WHY the law of gravity exists or holds to be the case instead of some other possibility.
If you wish to argue “ad ignorantiam” that to know “why” attraction exists within material particles is not meaningful, you would know that to be true, how?
Two problems. First there is no way to decide what is “knowable”, therefore this definition is vacuous - at best. If there is no way to decide what is “knowable” and what is not, your definition is useless.
Sure there is a way to decide what is knowable - is it an accurate depiction of what was, is or will be. That is what makes the definition quite meaningful. That is precisely the definition that grounds science, as well. The problem is that you want to set the bar for knowable at verifiable by repetition, when, clearly, much of what occurs around us in reality is not repeatable because circumstances will never align in the same way ever again for much of what occurs, in particular where human behaviour and action is concerned.
By claiming that whatever is not repeatable, is, therefore, not verifiable and therefore not true is an instance of you committing the argumentum ad ignorantiam precisely because you are claiming a proposition is true because it has not been proven false (or, in this case, false because it has not been proven true,) i.e., non-repeatable events, because they are unverifiable by the known laws of physics, could not occur because they are unrepeatable and therefore unverifiable.
You have ruled out the possibility of an entire class of events (non-repeatable events) as impossible because your criteria for accepting any event as possible (verifiable) is that they be repeatable, not just in principle, but to the stringent satisfaction of the experimental methods that you allow.
In essence, you are arguing something cannot be true because you do not know it to be true or it must be false because it has not been proven true (by your methods.) Argumentum ad ignorantiam? I’ll refrain from making observations about the “ridiculous arguments around here.”
Second, the Molinist “middle knowledge” (to know something that does not exist, but under some specific circumstances it could exist) leads to a logical nonsense. It asserts that something that does not exist, never existed, and will never exist, but under some specific circumstances it “might have existed” and it can be KNOWN is nonsense. To posit an example: “the omniscient God knows the precise content of a book which was never written, since its author was never born, since his possible parents never met…”. What would the word “know” mean in this respect? Of course you can “invent” a brand new meaning of “knowledge”, which bears no resemblance to the actual meaning of this word (to have information about something - or justified true belief). This kind of redefinition is also rather prevalent around here.
Your analysis here is wanting. It makes perfect sense to speak of legitimate possibilities and to “know” them. To know that this tree could be cut down and turned into lumber or paper is knowledge of the potential for what could plausibly occur. According to you, all such foresight would be logical nonsense.
On the contrary, I would argue that the capacity to foresee or anticipate with far reaching insight is a valid and crucial form of knowledge. In fact, creativity, presumes the ability to construct novel possibilities from what does not now nor never did exist, but COULD, even though it never will unless and until the creative agent brings it into existence and makes it a reality.
This is quite sensible and I celebrate that “around here” it happens with “prevalent” frequency.
. There are two problems with it. The small problem is that it is sheer mythology. The real problem is that it is the greatest insult that can be hurled at God. To say that God was unable / unwilling (?) to pardon the human sins without going through the self-sacrifice is the top of irrationality. God could have just declared “amnesty” any time he wanted do. There is one more auxiliary problem. The “forgiveness” is not unconditional. It does not a give a “free pardon”.
