What do you know for certain?

[ThinkingSapien]

A fact about which there is no reasonable doubt whatsoever - and on which you would be prepared to stake your life!

Take note those attributes can be mutually independent. I can have doubts about the abilities of a doctor and yet still prepare myself to put my life in her hands. And I can be without doubt on something but not be willing to wager my life on it.

 

[clem456]

A fact about which there is no reasonable doubt whatsoever - and on which you would be prepared to stake your life!

But do you mean doubtless as in provable scientifically? Or do you mean certain as in simply trusting my experiences to be objectively true? I can’t prove to you the car is coming down the street, but my eyes tell me I will undoubtedly be run down if I don’t move.

I think I can prove to you there is no doubt of God, but many people would doubt that proof.

 

[tonyrey]

Take note those attributes can be mutually independent. I can have doubts about the abilities of a doctor and yet still prepare myself to put my life in her hands. And I can be without doubt on something but not be willing to wager my life on it.

In both cases the question “Why?” arises. What distinguishes them as far as certainty is concerned?

 

[Julia_Mae]

Originally Posted by Julia Mae
I know a lot of things for certain. Why would I bother to demonstrate that they are and what makes you think my certainties are demonstrable to anyone else? Or should be?

I’m sorry, did that come from the Universal Guide to Philosophy Forum Standards and Practices, rev. 1997?

Philosophy, Tony, can’t be “substantiated.” It can be explained, you can make logical constructs, you can debate, but you cannot demonstrate.

You asked a totally open-ended question: what do you know for certain?

About what? My shoe size? Aerodynamics? How many pints are in a gallon?

I think before the question: what’s the point of participating, perhaps you might want to address what’s the point of asking a question apparently designed to be unanswerable in any rational manner?

 

[tonyrey]

But do you mean doubtless as in provable scientifically?

Scientists would be the first to admit that all their conclusions are provisional…

Or do you mean certain as in simply trusting my experiences to be objectively true? I can’t prove to you the car is coming down the street, but my eyes tell me I will undoubtedly be run down if I don’t move.

Experiences are notoriously deceptive! It is only extremely probable you will be run down.

I think I can prove to you there is no doubt of God, but many people would doubt that proof.

A certainty that highlights the difference between subjective and objective certainty!

 

[tonyrey]

I’m sorry, did that come from the Universal Guide to Philosophy Forum Standards and Practices, rev. 1997?

Never having heard of the book I think the answer is almost certainly “No”!

Philosophy, Tony, can’t be “substantiated.” It can be explained, you can make logical constructs, you can debate, but you cannot demonstrate.

“substantiate” and “demonstrate” are not synonyms…

You asked a totally open-ended question: what do you know for certain?

About what? My shoe size? Aerodynamics? How many pints are in a gallon?

About any subject you consider useful…

I think before the question: what’s the point of participating, perhaps you might want to address what’s the point of asking a question apparently designed to be unanswerable in any rational manner?

Others have no difficulty! Appearances are often deceptive…

 

[Paddy_Walker]

On a philosophy forum we are expected to substantiate our beliefs and conclusions. Otherwise what is the point of participating?

hey!.. why don’t you answer my post? you answered everyone else!
what if i substantiated my belief or conclusion?

 

[Julia_Mae]

hey!.. why don’t you answer my post? you answered everyone else!
what if i substantiated my belief or conclusion?

Nonono… no good! “Substantiate” is not the same as “demonstrate.” Please pay attention, Tony is giving us an invaluable education here.

 

[Fomalhaut]

I find no holes in Catholic doctrine. It must be true.

I’ve not been on this forum very long, but I saw a few discussions ending with “But we are talking about realities we can’t understand with our human minds, it seems illogical, but surely it is because we can’t grasp the answer”.

Which is a bit easy.

 

[empther]

A non-believer droned…

Originally Posted by empther
I find no holes in Catholic doctrine. It must be true.

I’ve not been on this forum very long, but I saw a few discussions ending with “But we are talking about realities we can’t understand with our human minds, it seems illogical, but surely it is because we can’t grasp the answer”.

Which is a bit easy.

In the world’s greatest novel,
which I wrote myself,
Theresa is talking with British Prime Minister Blair about a mysterious entity called HAL…

 He began.  “I should like to talk about HAL.  The first question is of what is he made?  Not matter?”
  “I’ve believed for a long time he’s made of dark matter.”
  “What is dark matter?”
  “Nobody knows, but there’s a lot of it.”
  “How do we know it exists?”
  We only know about it from its effect on gravity.  Galaxies don’t rotate at the right speed for the amount of visible matter they have.  I think they found out dark matter made galaxies get together in the first place.”
  “Can anything be made of this dark matter?”
  “Why not?  Think of a dark matter universe with dark matter people.  They can’t see our universe.  They can’t know matter has ninety-two elements that organize in a million ways.  How could they guess we have planets with millions of kinds of creatures?  We find new things in nature all the time. The dark matter world should have lots of surprises for us.”

There is no direct proof that dark matter exists, yet we know it has to.

So it is with matters about God.

Don’t you love my posts! :extrahappy:

 

[Skye_Ariel]

But, are you 100% sure of that?

LOL! Nope I’m not 100% certain of that either!

 

[Fomalhaut]

A non-believer droned…

In the world’s greatest novel,
which I wrote myself,
Theresa is talking with British Prime Minister Blair about a mysterious entity called HAL…

**He began. “I should like to talk about HAL. The first question is of what is he made? Not matter?”
“I’ve believed for a long time he’s made of dark matter.”
“What is dark matter?”
“Nobody knows, but there’s a lot of it.”
“How do we know it exists?”
We only know about it from its effect on gravity. Galaxies don’t rotate at the right speed for the amount of visible matter they have. I think they found out dark matter made galaxies get together in the first place.”
“Can anything be made of this dark matter?”
“Why not? Think of a dark matter universe with dark matter people. They can’t see our universe. They can’t know matter has ninety-two elements that organize in a million ways. How could they guess we have planets with millions of kinds of creatures? We find new things in nature all the time. The dark matter world should have lots of surprises for us.” **

There is no direct proof that dark matter exists, yet we know it has to.

So it is with matters about God.

Don’t you love my posts! :extrahappy:

Ok, so let’s sum it up.

• We are talking wether it is possible to know something with absolute certainty.
• You claim the catholic doctrine is a good candidate because it is perfectly self-consistent, “without holes”.
• I point out that from what I see, the catholic doctrine does have flaws, which are explained with the ad-hoc argument: “you can’t understand it with your tiny mind”.
• And now, your answer to that is to compare this problem with dark matter ?

I guess in your mind, dark matter plays the same role: you think it’s a magical argument that fills the gaps and is out of reach of human understanding ? Let me explain why your comparison does not hold water.

1. You are trying to make a parallel between a religious doctrine, which claims to be holding the Truth, and science, which is by nature fallible and changing. A hole in the first one is much more serious than in the second one.
2. Dark matter is not a magical argument. Maybe you think scientist looked at galaxy rotations, said “Well, our theory doesn’t explain that. It can’t be wrong, we should add this useless entity to make the numbers fit and voila !” and that this dogma remained unchanged.

a- Individual galaxy rotations are faster than expected from the visible matter
b- Galaxy motions within these clusters also don’t fit the visible matter distribution
c- When we look at cluster collisions, we see that there is a kind of matter that was contained into these clusters which just went through all normal matter without interacting during the collision. We see that there is mass on the sides of the collision, when there clearly isn’t any visible matter. A good read: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_Cluster#Significance_to_dark_matter
d- The cosmological background radiation is the echo of the Big Bang, it is a very cold radiation everywhere in the universe (it makes up for about 1% of the parasites you had on old TVs). It is our main source of information on the early universe and how it was like. You have to assume dark matter or else it doesn’t make any sense.

Here you are: 4 independant arguments for the existence of a non-interacting massive matter that makes up for 25% of the universe. Dark matter is really the name for “massive stuff that we don’t know the components yet”, but it is definitely real. Alternate theories, like Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) explain one, maybe two, of the above arguments, leaving the others floating, and they contradict the theory of relativity, which is probably the most verified theory of the history of science.

1. Even if we don’t know what exactly is dark matter yet, it doesn’t mean we’ll never do. A blogger put it in a better way than I’d do:

Dave Goldberg:

If you’re put off by the fact that we’ve never seen a Dark Matter particle, don’t be. Rutherford predicted the neutron (also a neutral particle, and thus difficult to detect) in 1920, 12 years before it was discovered. Dirac predicted anti-matter 27 years before it was first detected. Pauli predicted the existence of neutrinos in 1930, 26 years before they were discovered. We have a very good track record for figuring out what’s out there long before we see it. And we have some good ideas. I wouldn’t be surprised if the LHC or some other experiment detects a “Lightest Supersymmetric Particle” – one of the prime theoretical candidates for Dark Matter. I also wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be something else.

Whereas the holes in the catholic doctrines are logical. Waiting a hundred years is not going to change that. It will still be: “You can’t understand”.

 

[cheezey]

its certainly possible to be certain but you would not be certain about how you were certain.
you could predict a future something which you were told of in a dream, then tell everyone, then the something happens as you predicted. and now you and everyone would be certain that they knew that thing for certain even if they were not certain how they were certain…

Sorry!! Had to do it! funny AND well stated…

 

[tonyrey]

Nonono… no good! “Substantiate” is not the same as “demonstrate.” Please pay attention, Tony is giving us an invaluable education here.

Please ignore everything I write. Julia is pointing out the defects in my posts - without answering them of course! NB Isn’t there a forum rule about courtesy towards other members of the forum?

 

[tonyrey]

hey!.. why don’t you answer my post? you answered everyone else!
what if i substantiated my belief or conclusion?

Sorry, Paddy. There have been so many posts I overlooked yours.

A sceptic would say no conclusion be substantiated because nothing is certain except uncertainty! This statement is obviously self-contradictory. I think the solution is to distinguish absolute certainty - which is unattainable except in logic and mathematics - from relative certainty- which amounts to an immensely high degree of probability sufficient for all practical purposes.

It is possible we are all dreaming but it makes no difference to the way we live because the contents of our dreams (or dream) remain the same. We are the ones who interpret reality right from the moment we are born. No two persons interpret it identically because we all have different points of view. To a considerable extent the world is what we make it - in the light of our beliefs, values and experiences.

One thing is certain - at least as far as I’m concerned. Negativity takes us precisely nowhere…

 

[tonyrey]

Ok, so let’s sum it up.

• We are talking wether it is possible to know something with absolute certainty.
• You claim the catholic doctrine is a good candidate because it is perfectly self-consistent, “without holes”.
• I point out that from what I see, the catholic doctrine does have flaws, which are explained with the ad-hoc argument: “you can’t understand it with your tiny mind”.
• And now, your answer to that is to compare this problem with dark matter ?

I guess in your mind, dark matter plays the same role: you think it’s a magical argument that fills the gaps and is out of reach of human understanding ? Let me explain why your comparison does not hold water.

1. You are trying to make a parallel between a religious doctrine, which claims to be holding the Truth, and science, which is by nature fallible and changing. A hole in the first one is much more serious than in the second one.
2. Dark matter is not a magical argument. Maybe you think scientist looked at galaxy rotations, said “Well, our theory doesn’t explain that. It can’t be wrong, we should add this useless entity to make the numbers fit and voila !” and that this dogma remained unchanged.

a- Individual galaxy rotations are faster than expected from the visible matter
b- Galaxy motions within these clusters also don’t fit the visible matter distribution
c- When we look at cluster collisions, we see that there is a kind of matter that was contained into these clusters which just went through all normal matter without interacting during the collision. We see that there is mass on the sides of the collision, when there clearly isn’t any visible matter. A good read: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_Cluster#Significance_to_dark_matter
d- The cosmological background radiation is the echo of the Big Bang, it is a very cold radiation everywhere in the universe (it makes up for about 1% of the parasites you had on old TVs). It is our main source of information on the early universe and how it was like. You have to assume dark matter or else it doesn’t make any sense.

Here you are: 4 independant arguments for the existence of a non-interacting massive matter that makes up for 25% of the universe. Dark matter is really the name for “massive stuff that we don’t know the components yet”, but it is definitely real. Alternate theories, like Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) explain one, maybe two, of the above arguments, leaving the others floating, and they contradict the theory of relativity, which is probably the most verified theory of the history of science.

1. Even if we don’t know what exactly is dark matter yet, it doesn’t mean we’ll never do. A blogger put it in a better way than I’d do:

Whereas the holes in the catholic doctrines are logical. Waiting a hundred years is not going to change that. It will still be: “You can’t understand”.

Science is in a Black Hole if it has no philosophical foundation!

 

[Fomalhaut]

Science is in a Black Hole if it has no philosophical foundation!

What ?

 

[ThinkingSapien]

In both cases the question “Why?” arises. What distinguishes them as far as certainty is concerned?

Let’s look back at what was said.

A fact about which there is no reasonable doubt whatsoever - and on which you would be prepared to stake your life!

"A fact"
I’ll take “fact” to mean “proposition” since there is the question on the truth value of what the person is considering. “Fact” could be interpreted to mean that what is being considered has already been found to be true.

"about which there is no reasonable doubt whatsoever"
I think this is the better part of your definition and probably a sufficient definition by it self. This still refers to a feeling (or lack of a feeling:doubt). The word “reasonable” may be superfluous as some one can feel certain about things that are not seen as reasonable by others.

"and on which you would be prepared to stake your life!"
I think this part may not necessarily be applicable. In being risk averse one might not be willing to risk their life on something for which they feel certain. Or one may be willing to stake their life on something for which she is uncertain. (Some people do this for the thrill they get from it).

 

[Sair]

Is logical certainty a feeling? Can we know anything with logical certainty?

I don’t think one can have logical certainty (although I’m not certain of this…), no matter how confident one might be that a logical progression has been followed.

Logical certainty would depend upon the absolute truth of one’s premises, since the rules of logic can draw logically valid conclusions from any given premise, no matter how dubious.

If I assume correctly, you are attempting to elicit some acknowledgement of the ‘truth’ of your previous assertion, on other threads, that the only things of which we can be certain are our own impressions, feelings - basically anything we perceive from the inside of our mental processes.

But ‘knowledge’, as such, doesn’t work from purely internal mechanisms - we rely upon the perceptions of others to reinforce - and, quite often, correct - our own perceptions and impressions. So whilst it may be the case that the only information to which we have immediate access is that which our own internal faculties can process, we also have the tendency to look for further information against which to test the accuracy of our perceptions. The whole edifice of science, indeed, is built upon this tendency, and the awareness that we must correct for the inadequacies of our internal faculties. Unless one is a complete solipsist, this approach seems quite unproblematic…

 

[Sair]

There is no direct proof that dark matter exists, yet we know it has to.

So it is with matters about God.

But what specific, experimental data can you provide for the existence of God? There are, as I understand, specific calculations that point to the existence of dark matter - what specific calculations point to the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, benevolent, creative, supernatural deity?