What is this "scientific method" you all speak of?

[Charlemagne_III]

You’re in very dangerous territory, Charlie…

That’s what my wife just told me.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Where is your “proof” of a universal negative? That would be awesome to learn something really new, that was impossible for everyone (literally everyone!) up until you came along. Not nice to be to stingy… are you a reincarnation of Scrooge?

This universal negative is somewhat of a red herring that ends up getting neither of us anywhere.

My preference is for the principle of sufficient reason. That principle requires that the explanation for any existent entity or effect be proportionate to what the entity or effect requires to obtain.

There is a cold case detective named J Warner Wallace who subscribes to this principle in practice and demonstrates via his blog and podcasts that the evidential case for Christianity is at least as strong as the evidential cases he has built to convict criminals in the eyes of the law over his 30 year career.

coldcasechristianity.com

I will lay down an argument in my next post that will show something of the parallel between what is required to convict a criminal and how Christianity meets that burden. For a much better accounting, I suggest taking some time to read the articles on his website or better still one of his books.

What I will provide is a summary, of sorts, from my perspective. Wallace provides a much more complete account and answers objections very thoroughly.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I’m suggesting that what everyone agrees with is not necessarily true. Are you trying to make the case that if someone has a diiferent opinion it therefore has equal validity?

Apologies if I misread your post. It wasn’t easy to Interpret.

In science what everyone agrees with is not necessarily true. But the fact that everyone agrees should count for something.

In art, the same. An art work claimed by everyone as a masterpiece should count for something.

When all the critics but one say so, the one must scratch his head and say to himself, “Do they see something that I don’t?”

 

[Hee_Zen]

Well yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but there has to be something objectively beautiful for the eye to behold. No?

Not really. There must be something there which will be considered beautiful.

Taking your example as the starting block, let’s consider the “visual aspect” of reality, especially as pieces of art. Different painters developed different styles, like classical, cubist, impressionist, and many more. A picture painted in a “classicist” style which is “accurate” in the details will be considered beautiful by some, and “ho-hum” by others. These “others” might argue that the picture is simply a “copy” of reality, without adding anything new.

Let’s move on to auditory examples. The composers developed different styles, too. For many people Wagner’s music is the pinnacle of beauty, while many others would prefer Bach, or Mozart - or even jazz. There are the pieces of Oriental music, which lack the “harmony” of the Western style, they are full with discord and strange “jumps” in the sounds. For many people this type of music is cacophony, for others it is great. Who is “right”? The question is incorrect, it cannot be answered, precisely because it interrogates the subjective aspect of reality - which is a reflection of the objective reality.

The next field would be the “taste”. I already devoted a post to Plato’s “salty tasting fish” example, which you might have seen. The point is that there is a certain amount of salt in the dish, which can be measured objectively. But whether the dish “tastes” salty or not, is only contingent upon the taste of the one who eats it.

The examples are endless. The “weight” of an object is objective, it can be measured on a scale. But whether the object is “light” or “heavy” is a subjective assessment, contingent on the actual weight of the object AND also on the strength of the muscles of the lifter. The distance between two objects is objective and can be measured. But whether the object is “near” or “far” is subjective. For a marathon runner it might be “near”, for a quadriplegic it would extremely “far”. The same objective distance is considered differently by different people.

Putting aside the fact that the sun does not actually rise and set, but that the Earth is turning on its axis, when everybody beholds the sun rise in the east and set in the west every day, are we to say that everybody is having a purely subjective experience, or are we to say that everybody is having the same experience because it is the experience of a real event, not an event you can choose to interpret.

Correction: everyone has a “similar” experience of a real event. When experiencing a sunset, there is the phenomenon called the “golden bridge”, the reflection of the Sun in a body of water. (The reflection of the Moon is called the silver bridge.) When we were kids, we had a fun “argument” when we all insisted that the “bridge” comes exactly toward us, and not the other kids. This would be an analogy, that two people observe the same event would have a different interpretation of it.

There is no objective epistemological way to decide “who is right”? Is the picture beautiful or not? Is the dish “salty” or not? Is the “bridge too far” or not. Subjective assessments of the objective reality (aesthetics) has no epistemological method which can be an arbiter between the different views.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Suppose a woman is found dead in her apartment, her body badly mutilated and a garrote is found beside the body?

Would it occur to anyone to insist that the woman died of “natural” causes? That would simply be ruled out by the very nature of the effect. Natural causes do not dismember human bodies and a human agent weilding the garrote would most certainly appear to be the means by which the body was so mutilated.

Within the sum of “effects,” what we have is certainty that the act was committed by an agent and could not have simply “occurred.” The principle of sufficient reason requires that a sufficient reason or explanation for the effects be uncovered such that the explanation accounts for the totality of the effects.

We cannot, for the sake of convenience, bias or to protect a cherished POV simply punt to the event being a “brute fact” or merely “inexplicable.” Things that occur occur as the result of sufficiently explanatory reasons.

If we go back to the murder scene, there are some “facts” contained within the scene that point to causes “outside” of it. There is nothing within the apartment that could have efficiently brought about the dismemberment and death of the body. The woman could not, for example, have done it to herself and no agent capable of the act was found in the house. We have a pretty good idea what would be required in terms of force, dexterity, motivation, etc., to carry out the act.

To solve the case, what is required is to find an agent with the means, motive and opportunity to carry out the act and resolve any contradictory issues with regard to those.

This is the key point: There is not a negative burden on the prosecution to prove it IMPOSSIBLE for the one accused to have NOT committed the act, but “merely” that it is beyond reasonable doubt to claim that the accused did not do so.

What atheists, such as yourself, appear to demand from theists is a level of “proof” that exceeds it being reasonable to believe that God exists and much more like proof that would show it IMPOSSIBLE that he does NOT.

This where “skepticism” of the absolute and negative kind plays a large role for atheists. Any evidential or logical case that is made by theists is met with a kind of absolute negative skepticism such that even the most irrational doubt is taken by the “skeptic” as sufficient for overturning the case. The same level of absolute skepticism is never invoked against scientific conclusions, however.

Continued…

 

[Peter_Plato]

If we consider the Big Bang to be something like the apartment scene in my last post, we would begin by asking whether evidence exists within the scene that points to a reasonable explanation for the effect.

Just as with the apartment, evidence from the Big Bang points to an explanation outside of the universe because all the possible explanations within the universe BEGAN at that moment. Matter, time, space and energy ALL began to exist at that moment so they cannot be used to explain the event. A reasonable explanation would require that something other than matter, time, space and energy be cited as being the cause.

In the apartment, we could not reasonably claim that the woman did the heinous deed to herself. That would be unreasonable.

Not to simplify the issue too much, there are still questions about the nature of the singularity, etc., that remain, but certainly a theist is being very reasonable when the insistence is made that reason does point to an immaterial, eternal, non-spatial explanation given that matter, time, space and energy all came into existence at that moment and, therefore, CANNOT be their own explanation.

The principle of ex nihilo nihil fit would make it reasonable to assume that if the crime scene does not and can not explain itself, then we have warrant for going outside of it for a sufficient explanation. The question then becomes what could possibly have the means, motive and opportunity to create a physical universe from nothing. God becomes a reasonable explanation. Reasonable, unless, of course, you have good alternative reasons why God COULD NOT have done it. Simple “I don’t believe” statements do not fill the requirements to show he could not have.

This is where your universal negative comes in. Just as in criminal cases, the defense carries the burden to show the accused COULD NOT have done what s/he stands accused of; that is, there is good reason (not just bland ungrounded skepticism) to believe that the accused did not have the means, motive or opportunity to carry out the “crime.” What proof can you produce to show the ONLY plausible suspect, GOD, does not and could not have the means, motive or opportunity to carry out the “crime” of creating the universe?

As an aside, the multiverse suggestion just seems oddly convenient. It would be like the attorney for the defense in the case of the mutilated woman suggesting that some agent from a parallel universe popped into her apartment and committed the crime.

The problem, besides the fact that such a move is straining the bounds of rationality, is that the defense is asking the jury to overlook all the compelling evidence in our universe which reasonably functions to convict the accused on its own merit. We have no need to fabricate an explanation when the means, motive and opportunity of the accused is sufficent to find him/her guilty.

 

[Hee_Zen]

This universal negative is somewhat of a red herring that ends up getting neither of us anywhere.

Who keeps bringing it up as if it were a valid argument? The apologists, you know. When asked for evidence of God’s existence, one of the nonsensical “riposte” is “can you prove that God does not exist”? So you really should chastise them for such a nonsense, not me when I ask for the epistemological method to support it. Besides you, personally asserted that “universal negatives” **can be proven **in some undefined “absolute system”. Now either you can bring up a method to show this, or you can drop it. I suggest to drop it.

My preference is for the principle of sufficient reason. That principle requires that the explanation for any existent entity or effect be proportionate to what the entity or effect requires to obtain.

The PSR cannot be “absolute”, since that would lead to an infinite descent. The chain of “explanations” must stop somewhere. At that point we have a “brute fact”, which has no explanation, which does not need an explanation - which just IS. The stopping point for naturalists is the universe, for theists it is God.

The Big Bang is not a point which could be called to be the “beginning” of the universe. Only some theists assert that the universe just “popped” into existence. The concept of “outside the universe”, or “before the universe” are syntactically valid, but semantically meaningless phrases, exactly like the question: “when did you stop beating your wife?”. Nonsensical questions cannot be entertained.

 

[Peter_Plato]

The PSR cannot be “absolute”, since that would lead to an infinite descent. The chain of “explanations” must stop somewhere. At that point we have a “brute fact”, which has no explanation, which does not need an explanation - which just IS. The stopping point for naturalists is the universe, for theists it is God.

This amounts to a “Hee_Zen says so and, therefore, it MUST be true,” kind of claim. You provide no reason for thinking explanations MUST end in brute facts merely that you claim they do. We have NO reason for thinking self-explanatory reasons - sufficient to explain themselves and all else - CANNOT exist.

You merely claiming such a thing is insufficient for believing it to be true despite that you believe it is.

 

[Hee_Zen]

This amounts to a “Hee_Zen says so and, therefore, it MUST be true,” kind of claim. You provide no reason for thinking explanations MUST end in brute facts merely that you claim they do.

The word “self-explanatory” has a well defined meaning: “needs no explanation, self-evident, obvious, understandable without explanation” are some of its synonyms. In other words, it is a “brute fact” which cannot be explained and which needs no explanation. The word “explanation” describes a process of reducing something to an even more fundamental level. Since the “even more fundamental levels” cannot go to infinity, they need to stop somewhere.

We have NO reason for thinking self-explanatory reasons - sufficient to explain themselves and all else - CANNOT exist.

In this construct you “abuse” the word “self-explanatory”. As such your post is incoherent, you use an expression without a cognitive context. If you wish to produce an argument, the bare minimum is to use words and phrases in their actual meanings.

Presumably you wish to declare that God is “obvious”, “self-evident”, “needs no explanation”. Maybe that is your personal belief, but there is no reason to accept it. The concept that “an unknowable being, using unimaginable means somehow created this whole shebang” is so far from being “self-evident” that it is not simply not “obvious”, but actually a sheer logical and rational nightmare.

I don’t think that there is any reason to continue this particular line of thought.

On the other hand, I hope that we have dispensed with the idiocy of “proving a universal negative”. And maybe we could put a final “period” to the “salty taste of fish”, too. Would be nice, but I will not hold my breath.

This is where your universal negative comes in. Just as in criminal cases, the defense carries the burden to show the accused COULD NOT have done what s/he stands accused of; that is, there is good reason (not just bland ungrounded skepticism) to believe that the accused did not have the means, motive or opportunity to carry out the “crime.”

You must be kidding. The defense has no obligation to “prove” anything at all. It is the job of the prosecution to show beyond any reasonable doubt that the act has been committed by the alleged perpetrator. You need to take a vacation. Your posts are getting totally incoherent.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Not really. There must be something there which will be considered beautiful.

There is no objective epistemological way to decide “who is right”? Is the picture beautiful or not? Is the dish “salty” or not? Is the “bridge too far” or not. Subjective assessments of the objective reality (aesthetics) has no epistemological method which can be an arbiter between the different views.

1. But that “something” can only be considered beautiful **if it is **beautiful.
2. That’s not true at all. You are aware that there is a philosophy of art called aesthetics. The “epistemological method” as you call it, would be the principles of creativity appropriate to each art form.

Where in science there are protocols for conducting an experiment, in painting, for example, there are protocols for training the hand to draw representations of animate and inanimate objects at rest or in motion. When the artists fails to meet these protocols, the direct effect is to displease the senses.

When a poet writes a stanza of poetry with clumsy images and rhythms, for example, the protocols of writing poetry are defied and the result is likely to be a failed poet.

I’m not assure where you get this idea that there is no “epistemological method” for art.

 

[Hee_Zen]

1. But that “something” can only be considered beautiful **if it is **beautiful.

In the eyes of some or many people. There is no absolute criterion for “beauty”.

1. That’s not true at all. You are aware that there is a philosophy of art called aesthetics. The “epistemological method” as you call it, would be the principles of creativity appropriate to each art form.

Creativity has nothing to do with aesthetic appeal.

Where in science there are protocols for conducting an experiment, in painting, for example, there are protocols for training the hand to draw representations of animate and inanimate objects at rest or in motion. When the artists fails to meet these protocols, the direct effect is to displease the senses.

For some people. In the ancient Egypt the depiction of the human body was extremely “stylized”, with the head displayed from the side, the torso from the front, and the limbs also from the side. In that particular era the modern way of displaying the body would have been unacceptable.

When a poet writes a stanza of poetry with clumsy images and rhythms, for example, the protocols of writing poetry are defied and the result is likely to be a failed poet.

And who decides if the rhymes and rhythms are clumsy? New metaphors are considered “artistic” until they become “overused” and they become boring. There is no objective method to make such decisions.

I’m not assure where you get this idea that there is no “epistemological method” for art.

Epistemology must be objective. And since “beauty” is subjective…

 

[Peter_Plato]

The word “self-explanatory” has a well defined meaning: “needs no explanation, self-evident, obvious, understandable without explanation” are some of its synonyms. In other words, it is a “brute fact” which cannot be explained and which needs no explanation. sheer logical and rational nightmare.

This is playing fast and loose with the definition of self-explanatory or self-evident.

A brute fact is NOT self-evident. A brute fact appears to defy explanation so it isn’t self-evident nor self-explanatory, but rather is an appeal by those who wish to pursue the matter no further and, therefore, bring in the rather obtuse claim of “brute fact” as beyond all explanation according to their world view.

How would anyone know a “brute fact” CANNOT be explained without metaphysical certainty that it cannot have a possible explanation? How can that be known “for a fact” without a full accounting of all that is and why it is? Determinations about “brute fact” are premature until a full accounting is made, which is why the principle of sufficient reason MUST be fully utilized and exhausted BEFORE “brute fact” appeals can and should be made.

You can’t know when to halt inquiry at “brute fact” without completely exhausting the principle of sufficient reason, which is why sufficient reason rather than brute fact must be the operative and primary principle of inquiry. Invoking “brute fact” at any point absent a complete accounting is an arbitrary and premature step in the process of fully accounting for what is and why it is.

 

[Peter_Plato]

In the eyes of some or many people. There is no absolute criterion for “beauty”.

As a mere and limited subject, you cannot know there is no absolute criterion for beauty merely because you don’t have or know it.

In fact, your entire epistemology collapses since you, as subject, cannot “know” anything with absolute certainty, you cannot, especially, “know” that there is no absolute criterion for beauty, nor that there is or is not an absolute criterion for knowing anything at all.

Your grounds for denying a “criterion” for beauty become grounds for denying a criterion for “knowledge” in any epistemological sense, since human knowledge itself depends upon human subjectivity.

Your drawing the line at beauty is as arbitrary as drawing the line at “brute fact.”

 

[Hee_Zen]

This is playing fast and loose with the definition of self-explanatory or self-evident.

I suggest you bring it to the attention of those who created the dictionaries.

As a mere and limited subject, you cannot know there is no absolute criterion for beauty merely because you don’t have or know it.

There is no “absolute criterion” for saltiness either - because it is s-u-b-j-e-c-t-i-v-e.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Creativity has nothing to do with aesthetic appeal.

Epistemology must be objective. And since “beauty” is subjective…

Creativity has everything to do with aesthetic appeal. Ask your wife’s hairdresser.

Beauty is subjective because you say it is so? Are you conflating subjectivity with relativity? A boy born in the jungle might be terrified upon first hearing Verdi’s Requiem because he would not know what it is about. But the Catholic man born in the city knows very well and feels a like terror. That suggest music is objectively appreciable, even though the experience of Verdi’s terror is felt by people of relatively different backgrounds.

Things that are not objectively beautiful in themselves cannot be objectively beautiful in our appreciation of them. But if the objectively beautiful is not experienced as such, that might suggest a relatively impoverished capacity for feeling the objectively beautiful even when it smacks you in the face.

Some people no doubt still think the sun rises and sets. That is an impoverished ability to know objective truth. But you can’t just they are right to think the way they do. Likewise with the arts. Those with souls nurtured on the beautiful are also able to distinguish the beautiful from the vulgar, just as the scientist is able to distinguish true science from junk science.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

There is no “absolute criterion” for saltiness either - because it is s-u-b-j-e-c-t-i-v-e.

Pour a pound of salt on your steak and you may change your mind.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I suggest you bring it to the attention of those who created the dictionaries.

There is no “absolute criterion” for saltiness either - because it is s-u-b-j-e-c-t-i-v-e.

Are you claiming salt does not exist merely because individuals have methods of detecting saltiness that vary between them? That is, “saltiness” as a taste phenomenon may vary somewhat between individuals, but saltiness is objectively connected to the actual presence of salt in foods.

Merely because the method for detection varies somewhat between individuals and therefore the qualia of saltiness may be somewhat unique does not mean salt does NOT exist.

Likewise, merely because the methods for determining beauty varies somewhat between individual subjects does not imply beauty as an objective quality does not exist.

Beauty may, in fact, be a quality that belongs to the type of entity in question, its “fittedness,” so to speak, so merely because it is a difficult quality to grasp does not make it non-existent, YOUR desire to reduce qualities of existence to the graspable form you want to impose on them, notwithstanding.

 

[Hee_Zen]

Pour a pound of salt on your steak and you may change your mind.

No, it would be too salty for me. But a goat would happily lick the salt off it, and then the dog would also happily wolf the steak down. Different tastes, you know. Or “each 'is own”… or “de gustibus non est disputandum”, or “what is good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander”…

But you are welcome to construct a “salt-o-meter”, which will separate the “too salty” and the “just right” from the “not salty enough” - for everyone! Because that would be “objectively salty”. In the absence of such a machine - we all (expect maybe you two) will subscribe to the idea that “saltiness” is subjective.

 

[Hee_Zen]

Pour a pound of salt on your steak and you may change your mind.

No, it would be too salty for me. But a goat would happily lick the salt off it, and then the dog would also happily wolf the steak down. Different tastes, you know. Or “each 'is own”… or “de gustibus non est disputandum”, or “what is good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander”…

But you are welcome to construct a “salt-o-meter”, which will separate the “too salty” and the “just right” from the “not salty enough” - for everyone! Because that would be “objectively salty”. In the absence of such a machine - we all (except maybe you two) will subscribe to the idea that “saltiness” is subjective.

 

[Hee_Zen]

Are you claiming salt does not exist…

Ah, so you are back to your old and boring habit of putting words into someone else’s mouth? :tsktsk: Oh, well, some people never learn…