> Unless there is some ambiguity somewhere, "would be the way to go" doesn't bear much resemblance to "you will indeed attain".

Seriously? You really didn't understand that "would be the way to go" in this context means roughly "would be how they would reach their goal"? And that the implied goal in this scenario was not to die, but to attain wealth? Are you absolutely sure that you are not intentionally not understanding the obvious that you would understand in any other conversation that is not about a god belief?

> You modified "then shooting yourself in the head would be the way to go" to say "you then shoot yourself in the head, [then] you will indeed attain maximum wealth", which seemed to become a line of questioning to determine whether I thought a person will get what is in line with their beliefs. It should be fairly obvious that I don't think that is the case, unless one's beliefs are in line with what is true. Have I established what I think is true: no.

Which primarily means that you have just completely missed the point of that part of the conversation?

> I acknowledged that I had not substantiated a convincing argument to care about morality (given my definition) when you highlighted that "'care' and 'listen to' are two different questions as well".

Well, yeah ... so there is no reason to care about morality under your definition, then?

> Why define 'incompatible with science' this way over utilizing some form of the top definitions of 'incompatible' resulting from a quick google search (e.g. "so opposed in character as to be incapable of existing along with science", "incapable of association or harmonious coexistence with science", "that which cannot coexist or be conjoined with science", "not able to exist or work with science")?

All of those say pretty much the same, in so far as they are applicable to the situation?

> Also, are you saying that it is the "making" of the claim that is incompatible when using non-demonstrated methodology, or is it the claim itself that is incompatible?

Science is a "method for making/justifying claims", and as such, it is non-scientific methods that are (potentially) incompatible with it? Plus, obviously, you can justify claims that do have scientific justification via non-scientific methods (like, I dunno, "masses attract because I think 5 is a lucky number")--that justification is obviously non-scientific, but that doesn't change the fact that the claim that masses do attract does have scientific justification.

> How can a methodology be demonstrated to be reasonably reliable for determining the truth of a claim?

Using science.

> Why are formal claims excluded from being considered incompatible with science?

Because science is concerned with reality, and determining what is true about reality, and formal claims don't say anything about reality.

> Is it possible that a claim could be really true even though the methodology used to arrive at that claim has not been demonstrated to be reasonably reliable for determining the truth of such a claim?

Yes, obviously?

> What is the definition of science/"the scientific method"?

As far as this discussion is concerned, it's the idea that methods you use to justify claims about reality should be demonstrably reliable.

> Regarding the second part of your description of numbers, to what does "measuring or counting" refer (i.e. what is being measured or counted)?

Distances (in spaces) and cardinality (of sets).

> When we distinguish a rock from a picture of a rock, from the word "rock", and from the concept of a rock, we are noting that the rock exists apart from a picture of it, a word of it, and a concept of it. Now that's not difficult to accept because a rock is physical. So when I ask if we can do the same of mathematics, I am seeking an acknowledgement of the non-physical and a reason why if we can, and for a reason why if we cannot.

If we can what? Distinguish the word 'mathematics' from the concept of mathematics?

> Are you saying "not concerned with physical representation" is equivalent to "not material", as in "a movie is not material because it is not concerned with physical representation but is an instance of an abstraction which we have no evidence for or against being physical"?

No, it's not an equivalence, it is just one of the definitions of "not material". It is generally accepted usage to call concepts that are not concerned with material/physical aspects "not material". But there is also the usage of "something possessing attributes otherwise associated with the material, but also not being material", such as "an immaterial horse" or something along those lines. Those two definitions are not interchangeable.

> So all mathematicians agree that they don't intend to make statements about reality when they declare axioms?

No, just as not all humans agree that the earth is a sphere.

> What your definition of 'axiom'? The most readily available definitions I can find either roughly state that an axiom is "a self-evident truth", "a statement widely accepted as true", or "an assumption without proof for the sake of studying the consequences that follow". None of these indicate that axioms aren't intended to be statements about reality.

Which might be because they are not all talking exclusively about mathematics?

But really, I don't get what the point of all this even is. You can distinguish claims in formal systems and claims about reality, right? And you can distinguish statements declared as assumptions from statements declared as derived or observed truth, right? So, who cares whether all mathematicians agree on the names for these things (no, they don't, if only because mathematicians speak differen languages)? I have pointed out that those categories can be distinguished, and that showing something for one of those categories does not demonstrate truth for the other categories. So, how about we get back to the substance of that, instead of trying to figure out what people call it?

> So would I be correct in stating that you could just be defining 'axiom' however you want, and the statement "axioms are not claims about reality" simply conforms with your definition?

Well, yes and no. No, in that I used the definition that is commonly accepted, and didn't mean to introduce any unusual definition. But also yes, in the sense that in so far as we are not primarily talking about what the generally accepted definitions are or what other people mean, it doesn't make much sense to do anything other than to go with "well, ok, that's what they mean when they use the word", as long as it is being used consistently.

> So am I correct in that, given the Peano axioms, it is not obvious to you that '1 < 2' has a referent, because the Peano axioms may or may not be a purely artificial construct of humans.

No. It is not obvious that there is such a thing as "given the Peano axioms", absent humans (or possibly more generalized evaluators). You constantly want to make this assumption, but that assumption really is just the assumption of the existence of the immaterial, and as such it's not a useful basis for demonstrating the existence of the immaterial, because every false claim could be assumed to be true in order to demonstrate that it is true, and thus assuming a claim in order to demonstrate that it is true is not a reliable method for determining the truth of a claim.

> So you acknowledge that you don't know whether non-physical things exist?

That depends on the definition of "exists". As far as the most commonly used definition is concerned, the non-physical does not exist, because existence by definition implies physicality (when a normal person says "there exists no grocery store in this street", they are not excluding the possibility that a non-physical grocery store exists in the street). For a more general definition that you might find to be used by philosophers, I don't know.

> Because all of reality as we experience it can be intelligibly explained by science

Hu? Do you mean by that that there is nothing that's left unexplained by science? Or are you saying that whatever science doesn't have an explanation for yet, is (by definition) not part of reality? Or what?

> and since changes in state can be observed by science then there are intelligible explanations for those changes.

Hu?! I mean, yeah, we can observe changes in state, I guess, but then we also can observe changes in state that we don't have explanations for, can't we? So ... no?

> If in reality there were some changes of state that could not be intelligibly explained, then reality taken as a whole wouldn't be intelligible.

Well ... maybe? It smells like a setup for equivocation ...

> If reality as a whole was unintelligible, then it couldn't be fully and intelligibly asserted that "reality is not entirely intelligible". Such a statement is self defeating.

Well ... yeah? The point being? Has anyone made the claim that reality is not entirely intelligible?

> The electric field is physical, we can observe its effects and things that indicate it has been affected. The potential(s) for the electron field being in a different state is/are not observable via effects or things that indicate it has been affected.

Oh, so your claim is that the potential for the electric field to change state is something distinct from the electron? And analogously for the potential for the universe to change state?

Could you explain then what there is to this potential to change the state of the electric field beyond what is described by the theory of the electron and other charged particles (I used only "electron" before for simplicity, but I guess some more precision is appropriate here)?

As far as I can tell, "the potential to change" generally is simply a way to describe certain attributes of a thing, and you haven't demonstrated that that isn't all that's going on here.

When someone says "this lamp has the potential to change color", there isn't a thing in addition to the lamp that we call "the potential to change color", neither a physical nor a non-physical one, it's simply a way of expressing the fact that it has colored light filters built in, or uses different-colored LEDs, and that there are controls or something to influence in which proportions those are used to produce light. If you think there is something like "the essence of the potential to change color" that has some sort of existence beyond what is described by the mechanism of the lamp, that would be for you to demonstrate.

> "If you cared to attain maximum wealth, and you believed that maximum wealth could be attained through shooting yourself in the head, then shooting yourself in the head would be the way to go"--was an assertion that a person ought to follow their beliefs.

So, you think they ought to follow their belief even though they demonstrably (I think you would agree?) will achieve the exact opposite of their stated goal by doing so?

Do you think they mean the same thing as your definition? If so why, otherwise where did you get your definition of 'incompatible with science' from?

> ... it is non-scientific methods that are (potentially) incompatible with [science].

Is this to say that non-scientific methods are not necessarily incompatible with science?

> Using science.

How is science demonstrated to be reasonably reliable for determining the truth of a claim?

Is that to say that science can demonstrate the reliability of a methodology that is used to determine the truth of non-scientific claims?

> Because science is concerned with reality, and determining what is true about reality, and formal claims don't say anything about reality.

Define reality.

How do you know that formal claims don't say anything about reality?

Is science the only method that can determine what is true about reality?

> Yes, obviously?

Then, how do you know that mathematical claims are not about reality when it may simply be the case that the rules that derive them have not been demonstrated to be reasonably reliable for determining the real truth of such a claim?

> As far as this discussion is concerned, it's the idea that methods you use to justify claims about reality should be demonstrably reliable.

What about this definition determines that not being testable is "about as incompatible with science as you can get"?

Why define 'science' this way over utilizing some form of the top definitions of 'science' resulting from a quick google search (e.g. "the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment", "such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world", "systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation", "is the pursuit and application of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence")?

===

> Distances (in spaces) and cardinality (of sets).

What is distance?

What are spaces?

What is cardinality?

What are sets?

> If we can what? Distinguish the word 'mathematics' from the concept of mathematics?

Not the word but mathematics itself. Just like you can distinguish a rock from the concept of a rock.

> No ...

Then why state "... (by mathematicians)" rather than "(by some mathematicians)" (though that still wouldn't seem to help assert your case)? It seams like your using the intent of mathematicians to assert that axioms are not claims about reality when you don't know the intent of all mathematicians. Do you have a more solid way to stake your claim?

> Which might be because they are not all talking exclusively about mathematics?

Then from where are you drawing your definition?

> But really, I don't get what the point of all this even is. ... I have pointed out that those categories can be distinguished, and that showing something for one of those categories does not demonstrate truth for the other categories.

We have singled out formal truths from real truths to highlight your position that distinguishes them. I have yet to agree that formal truths are not real truths because I don't think that you have established that as fact.

> Well, yes and no.

So you don't know whether your defining 'axiom' however you want and whether the statement "axioms are not claims about reality" simply conforms with your definition?

> No, in that I used the definition that is commonly accepted...

What is, and from where are you drawing, your definition of axiom?

> No. It is not obvious that there is such a thing as "given the Peano axioms", absent humans (or possibly more generalized evaluators).

So, it is not obvious to you that '1 < 2' does or does not have a referent, because the Peano axioms that '1 < 2' is derived from may or may not be a purely artificial construct of humans (or possibly more generalized evaluators)?

> That depends on the definition of "exists".

What is your definition?

> As far as the most commonly used definition is concerned, the non-physical does not exist, because existence by definition implies physicality

"You constantly want to make this assumption, but that assumption really is just the assumption of the [non-]existence of the immaterial, and as such it's not a useful basis for demonstrating the [non-]existence of the immaterial, because every false claim could be assumed to be true in order to demonstrate that it is true, and thus assuming a claim in order to demonstrate that it is true is not a reliable method for determining the truth of a claim.

> because existence by definition implies physicality (when a normal person says "there exists no grocery store in this street", they are not excluding the possibility that a non-physical grocery store exists in the street)

How do you know 'existence' is implying physicality in this scenario over 'grocery store' implying physicality?

===

> ... Or what?

Read 'can be'.

> Hu?! I mean, yeah, we can observe changes in state, I guess, but then we also can observe changes in state that we don't have explanations for, can't we? So ... no?

Not having an explanation now doesn't mean that there can't be one. Science has yet to fail in giving us further explanations for things. So, unless you want to deny the effectiveness of science you have no case.

> Well ... maybe? It smells like a setup for equivocation ...

If a wall was painted completely blue and then someone added a spec of orange somewhere, then wall as a whole would not be blue.

> Well ... yeah? The point being? Has anyone made the claim that reality is not entirely intelligible?

You asked "Couldn't there be mechanisms by which something changes state that can not be determined by science?". My point is "No" for the aforementioned reasons.

> Could you explain then what there is to this potential to change the state of the electric field beyond what is described by the theory of the electron and other charged particles (I used only "electron" before for simplicity, but I guess some more precision is appropriate here)?

There is nothing to the "potential to change the state of the electric field" that goes beyond what is described by the theory of the electron and other charged particles. The theory incorporates notions of change. Stating that something can change is to state that the potential for that thing to change exists. So, the "potential to change the state of the electric field" doesn't go beyond the theory.

> As far as I can tell, "the potential to change" generally is simply a way to describe certain attributes of a thing, and you haven't demonstrated that that isn't all that's going on here.

This sounds like a claim against my definition. If that's what it is, then you'll need to substantiate that your definition is something I need to deny, but... You yourself rightly noted to me that it doesn't make sense to ask if a definition is true. Are you now saying that I need to argue against a definition, one that, as far as I can tell, you made up?

Or perhaps you are saying that your definition is the generally accepted one, and you are asking me to argue that your definition isn't the generally accepted one. In which case I'd ask you to substantiate your claim that your definition is the generally accepted one?

> When someone says "this lamp has the potential to change color", there isn't a thing in addition to the lamp that we call "the potential to change color", neither a physical nor a non-physical one

Soooo, you don't think a lamp can change color?

> it's simply a way of expressing the fact that it has colored light filters built in, or uses different-colored LEDs, and that there are controls or something to influence in which proportions those are used to produce light.

And not to express that a lamp can change color...?

> If you think there is something like "the essence of the potential to change color" that has some sort of existence beyond what is described by the mechanism of the lamp, that would be for you to demonstrate.

Again, like with the electric field, "the essence of the potential to change color" does not exist beyond what is described by the mechanism of the lamb because the mechanism of the lamp is in part described by change. To be able to change color is "the essence of the potential to change color", which of course exists, otherwise you'd be saying something tantamount to "lamps can't change color".

That "non-physical potential(s) of particular physical things exists" is the conclusion to my 'potential' argument. You have yet to substantiate any objection against it.

===

> So, you think they ought to follow their belief even though they demonstrably (I think you would agree?) will achieve the exact opposite of their stated goal by doing so?

Long story short: It is immoral to do what you think is immoral even if it is moral, so you'll be better off doing what you think is moral even if it is immoral. That being said we are obligated to correct our neighbors' incorrect moral beliefs and to be open to being corrected.

Looking back, all of my statements regarding the scenarios were ambiguous to my intent because they were all meant to be tied to morality but I didn't explicitly state it as such. My bad.

> Well, yeah ... so there is no reason to care about morality under your definition, then?

Does a person not substantiating a claim mean that the claim is not true?

Out of curiosity, what would you say is a reason to care about science?

> This sounds like a claim against my definition.

No, I am asking you to substantiate that there is more to it than a definition, because a definition doesn't make reality. Namely, defining that 'existence' covers the application of a label to a set of attributes of another thing does not justify treating it as existing in the sense of being an entity onto itself, which is what this was originally about.

I don't care whether you label that as existence, if I understand that that is what you mean. I care about the fallacious equivocation that you are attempting when you then go on to claim that anything that can be said to exist under that definition also has the properties that would be required under a different definition.

> That "non-physical potential(s) of particular physical things exists" is the conclusion to my 'potential' argument. You have yet to substantiate any objection against it.

There is nothing to substantiate on my part. You have in no way substantiated the "non-physical" part. You have specified no criterion by which we could distinguish whether that potential is physical or not. All sort-of-criteria you have mentioned were very vague for one, and would classify all kinds of things generally considered to be physical by physicists as non-physical.

At best, any distinctions you have tried were artefacts of the language that you use to describe the situation, rather than of the situation itself. You call one thing a "potential", while you call the other thing a "mechanism", and then try to build a distinction on that. But you seem to never check whether you couldn't just as well look at the potential as a mechanism and at the mechanism as a potential. The fact that you can use two different words to describe the same situation does not make for a substantial difference in the facts of the matter.

> Long story short: It is immoral to do what you think is immoral even if it is moral, so you'll be better off doing what you think is moral even if it is immoral.

Wut? Seriously, I have problems taking you seriously on this. How far do you have to twist concepts in your head for that statement to make any sense at all? "It is immoral to do [something] even if it is moral [...]". How is it not blatantly obvious to you that that is just a nonsense statement due to a couldn't-be-more-obvious self-contradiction?

> Does a person not substantiating a claim mean that the claim is not true?

You are again shifting the burden of proof. Seriously, stop it, it's annoying!

Noone claimed that your claim wasn't true. But the mere fact that some claim has not been demonstrated to be false yet is not a good reason to care about the claim, because the vast majority of claims that have not been demonstrated to be true or been demonstrated to be false yet are in fact false, statistically speaking, so caring about every claim that hasn't been demonstrated to be false yet (other than possibly for the purposes of determining the truth of the claim) would have an abysmal success rate.

> Out of curiosity, what would you say is a reason to care about science?

The fact that it is the collection of methodology (using a rather broad definition of science, which is what I think you should care about) that produces demonstrably the by far most reliable predictions of reality that thus allow us to control reality better (because we can use that predictive power to act in a way that results in outcomes closer to our goals, from political decisions to medical interventions or the engineering of technical solutions).

If you care about being able to better achieve your goals (as you probably do, because that's a thing humans almost universally do), you should care about using the most reliable methodology known so far that enables that, up to the point where we possibly find a demonstrably more reliable methodology.

Note: We seem to be getting side-tracked with tons of irrelevant details. Instead of answering all your questions, I will try try reformulating my position on some things in the hopes of maybe clearing up some of the confusion.

> Do you think they mean the same thing as your definition? If so why, otherwise where did you get your definition of 'incompatible with science' from?

What does any of this matter? It is really simple: I, just as scientists generally, use the word "science" to mean "the collection of methods that are demonstrably reliable for determining facts about reality". Religion uses methods that are not demonstrably reliable for determining (supposed) facts about reality. So, religion will make (real) truth claims and will claim that those are reliable, where science says that those claims are unreliable, which means that the statements are in conflict.

That is the fact of the matter. If you want to argue about whether there are some people who hold positions as scientists who happen to use a different definition, or whether this is true, ultimate incompatibility when it is possible for both to exist in the same universe ... really, I am just not interested, because none of that changes anything about this pretty easy to understand fact.

What I am interested in are substantial arguments that show that in fact the methods used by religions to make (real) truth claims are comparable in reliability to scientific methods.

> How is science demonstrated to be reasonably reliable for determining the truth of a claim?

By testing whether the predictions made by whatever method is suggested as part of scientific methodology do come true with a probability higher than chance, preferably much higher than chance.

> How do you know that formal claims don't say anything about reality?

How do you know that claims about football don't say anything about the car industry?

First and foremost, that is a nonsensical question. When someone makes a claim that they intend to say something about football, then that is what their claim is about, by the definition of what it means to make a claim. You are making it way more complicated than necessary when you try to then argue about whether the statement could somehow also be interpreted as being about the car industry. Maybe it can, but that doesn't change anything about the fact that whoever made the claim was not trying to convey anything about the car industry. The speaker didn't mean what they didn't mean, no matter how much you argue about the labels used to describe the situation and whether the statement could be reinterpreted to mean something else than what was meant by the speaker.

The fact that the same sequence of words can be used to describe distinct facts about reality does not mean that when you show that one of those facts is true, all other facts that could be described using the same words are also true, so it is a completely futile exercise to keep arguing about whether some word or some statement could also mean something else.

> Then, how do you know that mathematical claims are not about reality when it may simply be the case that the rules that derive them have not been demonstrated to be reasonably reliable for determining the real truth of such a claim?

Because there is nothing in the claim that even refers to reality, just as there is nothing in the claim about football that refers to the car industry. This has absolutely nothing to do with whether some method is reliable--there is simply no method at all, it's all just a category error.

You might as well be asking how I know that claims about English grammar are not about reality when it may simply be the case that the rules to derive English sentences have not been demonstrated to be reasonably reliable for determining the real truth of such a claim.

When someone says "'The tree jumps over the moon.' is a grammatically correct English sentence", it is nothing more than a category error to ask what that statement says about reality. It simply doesn't. It is, very obviously, talking about the formal system also known as the English language, and whether the sentence 'The tree jumps over the moon.' can be derived from the "axioms" of the English language.

Also, it is completely irrelevant whether someone somewhere maybe does make statements that are intended to say something about both English grammar and medicine. The fact that that might somehow be possible still does not change that in general, when someone talks about English grammar, they are not talking about medicine. And most importantly for this conversation: When I am telling you that I am explicitly not talking about medicine, but only about English grammar, it is just completely besides the point to keep going on about how someone maybe could also mean to say something about medicine.

> What is distance?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_(mathematics)#Definitio...

> What are spaces?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_space#Definition

> What is cardinality?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinality

> What are sets?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiomatic_set_theory#Axiomatic...

The point is: A bunch of axioms and what results from them.

> Not the word but mathematics itself. Just like you can distinguish a rock from the concept of a rock.

So, what would you point to for mathematics if you wanted to point to mathematics while avoiding pointing to the concept of mathematics? I don't see what could possibly be meant by that, so if you want to make the claim that there is something there, it's up to you to demonstrate that there is.

> Then why state "... (by mathematicians)" rather than "(by some mathematicians)"

For the same reason that you don't say "The earth is considered to be an oblate spheroid (by most physicists)", and the fact that you are asking this makes me wonder how much you are actually trying to understand, rather than just trying to avoid justifying your own position. It is just completely normal and not the slightest bit of a problem that you generalize when talking about groups of people, when it is just completely irrelevant whether some small minority of that group deviates from what otherwise defines that group.

> We have singled out formal truths from real truths to highlight your position that distinguishes them. I have yet to agree that formal truths are not real truths because I don't think that you have established that as fact.

There is no fact to establish here. I am simply telling you about the distinction that I am making (as are many other people). And it doesn't even matter whether formal truths are also real truths. What matter is that you can distinguish formal truths from not-formal truths.

> So, it is not obvious to you that '1 < 2' does or does not have a referent, because the Peano axioms that '1 < 2' is derived from may or may not be a purely artificial construct of humans (or possibly more generalized evaluators)?

I guess so? I mean, I would say it's pretty obvious that the way we know them they are an artificial construct of humans (like, the axioms were formulated by humans). If you think there is more to it than that, that would be for you to demonstrate.

> Not having an explanation now doesn't mean that there can't be one.

You are shifting the burden of proof, again. It is really getting annoying. You implicitly claimed that there would be explanations for all things we have no explanations for yet. I rejected that claim. When I reject your claim that there will be explanations, I am not making any claim, and in particular I am not making the claim that there will be things that will be unexplained forever, so stop turning my asking for your justification around into "but some other claim I have made up is unjustified as well!".

If you make the claim that there will be explanations for everything we can observe, then it is up to you to substantiate that claim. You are not justified in making that claim just because I have not demonstrated that something will stay unexplained forever--a claim that I never made, and that is in no way implied in my rejection of your claim.

If there is a question to which we don't know the answer, your unsubstantiated answer does not win by default until someone disproves it. If we don't know the answer, we don't know the answer, and it's up to you to demonstrate that you do know the answer if you think that you do.

> Science has yet to fail in giving us further explanations for things. So, unless you want to deny the effectiveness of science you have no case.

Science constantly fails to give us answers? Like, exactly everything we don't know, which is, like, a lot? The effectiveness of science is very obviously limited, given how much we would want to know, but don't. That doesn't mean it's ineffective, it just as obviously is not, but there is no contradiction between recognizing that it is limited, and possibly fundamentally so (in the sense that some things might stay unexplained forever), and recognizing that it is effective.

> If a wall was painted completely blue and then someone added a spec of orange somewhere, then wall as a whole would not be blue.

Yeah, sure. The problem is when you then build an argument on that and then use that argument to conclude something about almost completely blue walls.

To skim things down, let's get more formal.

===

Could you please state your argument, regarding things being testable as they relate to science, in the form of a syllogism that ends with the conclusion "Therefore if X is a claim about reality and X is not testable, then X is not compatible with science" to establish that a claim about reality not being testable is "about as incompatible with science as you can get"?

A preemptive question to the syllogism that you may give (to possibly help its formulation): Are all aspects of reality testable by science?

Much of our discussion can be omitted as it ties back to our main contention which is "what constitutes compatibility with science". If there is a need to resume something previously discussed it will likely resurface from here. I apologize if I am making you restate things, I am making my best attempt to understand your position (you have no idea how nice it would be for me to ditch my Catholic faith if it could be shown that it wasn't true), hopefully that's been evident by the amount of time I've left between some responses. Again I've included things that interest me which don't necessarily contribute to our "compatibility with science" dispute.

===

> By testing whether the predictions made by whatever method is suggested as part of scientific methodology do come true with a probability higher than chance, preferably much higher than chance.

Testing by a method other than science? How do you know that method is reliable?

===

Could you please provide a syllogism that ends with the conclusion "Therefore formal claims are not about reality" to establish that mathematical/grammatical claims are not about reality?

===

> So, what would you point to for mathematics if you wanted to point to mathematics while avoiding pointing to the concept of mathematics? I don't see what could possibly be meant by that, so if you want to make the claim that there is something there, it's up to you to demonstrate that there is.

That's what I'm asking, I'm not claiming one way or the other. If you know what it points to please let me know, and how you know. If you don't know, then you can't rule out the non-physical without knowing whether it points to something physical or not.

> It is just completely normal and not the slightest bit of a problem that you generalize when talking about groups of people, when it is just completely irrelevant whether some small minority of that group deviates from what otherwise defines that group.

Except your saying that it all depends upon intent and you'd need to take into account intents that don't agree if that is the case. But now you've stated that it depends upon the intent of the majority. If the majority of mathematicians say that they are making claims about reality, then you'd likely say (correct me if I am wrong) that "anyone can obviously redefine words however they want but that doesn't make the claims they are making about reality" even though you've made it about the majority's intent. You need to establish that axiomatic claims can't be about reality in some way besides intent. The syllogism that I've asked you to provide above would do that.

> I guess so? I mean, I would say it's pretty obvious that the way we know them they are an artificial construct of humans (like, the axioms were formulated by humans). If you think there is more to it than that, that would be for you to demonstrate.

My point is that you don't know whether '1 < 2' has a referent or not. If you know that mathematical claims are not about reality, then you would know that '1 < 2' has no referent. If you don't know that '1 < 2' has no referent, then you don't know that mathematical claims are not about reality. I don't need to establish "'1 < 2' has a referent" to establish that you don't know whether mathematical claims are about reality.

===

> You implicitly claimed that there would be explanations for all things we have no explanations for yet.

I explicitly stated it. Even if you said science is limited, as you have done, you'd still have no case because the position that "there are not explanations for some things" is self-defeating, as I have already stated.

> You have specified no criterion by which we could distinguish whether that potential is physical or not.

Unless your criterion assumes that everything that exists is physical, I don't see why I couldn't use your criterion.

===

> "It is immoral to do [something] even if it is moral [...]". How is it not blatantly obvious to you that that is just a nonsense statement due to a couldn't-be-more-obvious self-contradiction?

If you think there is a contradiction, please state it as a syllogism to highlight it. I'll rephrase to make my statement less ambiguous: It is immoral to do X if you think X is immoral even if X is moral, so you'll be better off doing any X you think is moral even if X is immoral.

> You are again shifting the burden of proof. Seriously, stop it, it's annoying! No one claimed that your claim wasn't true. ...

Your question seemed snarky, so I gave it the snarky response I thought it deserved. I apologize if it was a genuine question, and if so my answer would be "No there is a reason, but not one I care to defend at the moment".

I thought I could give part of a reason, even if not fully formed, because I didn't want to be a bad host of the questions that lead to this side conversation. That being said, I have no interest in substantiating my claims regarding morality if you don't think that what I am saying could be compatible with science even in principle. I don't mind getting deeper into it, but substantiating, not worth the effort at the moment.

===

> If you care about being able to better achieve your goals (as you probably do, because that's a thing humans almost universally do), you should care about using the most reliable methodology known so far that enables that, up to the point where we possibly find a demonstrably more reliable methodology.

If I were to supplant "morality", as I have defined it, for "science", and repeated what you said as a reason to care about morality, what objections might you have to the given reason?

> You need to establish that axiomatic claims can't be about reality in some way besides intent. The syllogism that I've asked you to provide above would do that.

You are simply missing the point. It's not a question of if it "can be about reality". That's like asking "can claims about John be about Jack?" No, they can't. And that's not for some deep reason that you seem to be looking for that somehow magically prevents claims about John from being about Jack. It's the frickin obvious fact that when I say "John has brown hair", I am not talking about Jack. That's all there is to it, and you are just obfuscating this trivial fact by trying to reinterpret what I might mean by "John", and whether I maybe am using "John" to refer to an invisible unicorn. I don't mean any of that, I simply mean John, and that is why I said "John". Your ability to be creative in your interpretation does not change what I mean by a statement.

> My point is that you don't know whether '1 < 2' has a referent or not. If you know that mathematical claims are not about reality, then you would know that '1 < 2' has no referent. If you don't know that '1 < 2' has no referent, then you don't know that mathematical claims are not about reality. I don't need to establish "'1 < 2' has a referent" to establish that you don't know whether mathematical claims are about reality.

Let me clarify: Under the definitions used by mathematicians, '1 < 2' has no referent absent the axioms defined by mathematicians, that is easy to know from the definitions used by mathematicians. If you want to propose different definitions that possibly are structurally compatible with the ones used by mathematicians, feel free to do so, but if those imply that '1 < 2' has a referent absent axioms/evaluators/..., that would be up to you to demonstrate.

> I explicitly stated it. Even if you said science is limited, as you have done, you'd still have no case because the position that "there are not explanations for some things" is self-defeating, as I have already stated.

But I have never made that claim, so what is the point of bringing it up?

> Unless your criterion assumes that everything that exists is physical, I don't see why I couldn't use your criterion.

I don't have a criterion? I don't think there is any distinction to be made, and if you think that there is, it's up to you to demonstrate some way to make the distinction.

> If you think there is a contradiction, please state it as a syllogism to highlight it. I'll rephrase to make my statement less ambiguous: It is immoral to do X if you think X is immoral even if X is moral, so you'll be better off doing any X you think is moral even if X is immoral.

For any action X, "being moral" is semantically equivalent to "being moral to do", and "immoral" is the negation of "moral". Therefore, your statement says that there exists an action that is moral and not moral at the same time.

> That being said, I have no interest in substantiating my claims regarding morality if you don't think that what I am saying could be compatible with science even in principle.

The primary problem is not what you are saying, the primary problem is the method you use to justify it.

> If I were to supplant "morality", as I have defined it, for "science", and repeated what you said as a reason to care about morality, what objections might you have to the given reason?

That you have in no way demonstrated that your version of morality does produce any of the results promised, it's just an empty assertion.

> Could you please state your argument, regarding things being testable as they relate to science, in the form of a syllogism that ends with the conclusion [...]

I might try to, but I suspect the problem is more the nailing down of definitions than the logical structure of the argument, and I suspect in particular that there might be some misunderstanding about ...

> A preemptive question to the syllogism that you may give (to possibly help its formulation): Are all aspects of reality testable by science?

... what "testability" means in the context of the philosophy of science, as this question doesn't really make all that much sense in that context.

First of all, there is no such thing as "testable by science". Science is not a method of testing things. At most, you could maybe say that science is the collection of all of the reliable methods of testing things known so far.

I'll go on somewhat of a tangent, but I think it might be helpful: You do maybe know the saying "There is no such thing as alternative medicine, just medicine that works, and medicine that doesn't"? What is meant by that is that medicine is not a fixed set of methods, but rather the collection of all of the methods that have been demonstrated to be effective so far. But the important bit is the "so far": It's very much possible that some other methods are effective as well, even some of those that are suggested as "alternative medicine". But the point is that those methods are not excluded from medicine on the grounds of some dogma or anything like that, but rather simply because they have not been demonstrated to be effective--and as soon as their efficacy is demonstrated, they will simply become part of medicine. So, "alternative medicine" only consists of methods of which the efficacy is unknown, or which are known to be ineffective, because anything that previously was in that category, and for which efficacy now has been demonstrated, becomes "normal" medicine.

Science is the same way. So, in particular, science does not have any dogma against religious ideas or methods just because they are religious ideas or methods. There is no doctrine that says that science is somehow not allowed to come to the conclusion that god exists, say. Nor does science have any doctrine against conclusions about the supernatural or the non-physical ... or anything, really. The demand is just that you can show that whatever methods you use to come to a conclusion are (reasonably) reliable.

The point is: When science demands testability, it doesn't mean "testable using the methods prescribed by science", it just means testable in any way at all--if you need to use a new method for the test, that is perfectly fine, if you can demonstrate that it works. Really, it's not just that any effective method of testing is fine, but rather, any new method demonstrated to be effective would simply start being considered to be part of science. The defining goal of science is to produce reliable predictions, and any method that helps with that is acceptable. If you could demonstrate that prayer can be used to make reliable predictions (including to reliably influence outcomes, in which case the prediction would be that the prayer produces that particular outcome), then prayer would be accepted as a scientific method.

Also, I think it is important to note what specificially testability means in the context of the philosophy of science: Testability is the property of a claim that you know experiments that could be done, and if those experiments gave a result different than predicted by your claim, you would conclude that your claim is false. The point of demanding testability is not to establish that something is true (apparently something that many people think), nor to establish that it is false. The point of testability is to weed out those claims that are indistinguishable from stuff that someone just made up. That is not because what someone just made up is necessarily false, but because almost all claims that someone could potentially make up are false, and thus, if you have no way to distinguish a given claim from one that was just made up, the probability that it is false is extremely high. Importantly, demanding testability is not a dogmatic demand: There is a reason for it, namely that without it you are likely to accept lots of false claims.

So, are all aspects of reality testable by science? Well, for one, any aspects that are testable, by whichever method, are, by definition, testable by science, for any demonstrably reliable test you were to use would become part of science. Which leaves the question: Are all aspects of reality testable? I don't know, possibly not. But the time to believe any claims about those aspects that are not testable is when they become testable, and not before, for the reason I explained above: They are indistinguishable from stuff someone just made up.

> I am making my best attempt to understand your position (you have no idea how nice it would be for me to ditch my Catholic faith if it could be shown that it wasn't true),

Haha, that statement actually indeed makes it very believable that you do, for a reason that you most likely didn't even notice. Let me explain:

What you are doing here is shifting the burden of proof, again--except: You are shifting it to yourself, where it doesn't belong. You are believing something, it seems, because it hasn't been disproven to you. As a general rule, that's a bad idea, and with religions in particular, it will essentially guarantee that you won't find the way out. Mind you that I am not saying that you necessarily should find the way out, because your particular religion could in principle be true, after all. But what should give you pause is that this is true of all religions--and they can impossibly all be true, because they make contradicting claims. All religions have at their core untestable claims, that is, claims which are impossible to contradict with any test. The claims themselves are constructed in such a way that it is impossible to disprove them, even if they are in fact false. So, no matter whether they are true or false, you won't ever find a way to disprove them.

So, if you are trying to disprove the claims of your religion, you might as well give up, you won't, ever, at least for the central claims, and no matter what your religion is. What I would suggest instead is shifting the burden of proof to those making the claim, and to disbelieve claims until they have been demonstrated to be most likely true, not believe claims until they have been demonstrated to be most likely false--which most likely is something that you do practice for most (all?) other claims anyway (like, if someone is trying to sell you something, you won't just take their word for it that theirs is the best product until you have disproved that claim, but rather you will first investigate alternatives before you come to a conclusion about which product is likely to be the best). There should be reasons to believe, not no reasons to not believe.

Now, given the effects of religious indoctrination, especially when coupled with (also untestable) threats for disbelief, that's potentially easier said than done, and probably not something that you'll just switch frome one day to the next, but given what you wrote, I guess it's a perspective worth thinking about. If you are interested, I guess I could also dump a bunch of resources on you that might be helpful in further exploring your reasons for your religious beliefs, just let me know and I'll dig up some URLs ...

> Testing by a method other than science? How do you know that method is reliable?

No, by testing with an established scientific methodology. You simply use methods that you do already know are reliable to test other methods whether they are reliable. (And mind you that "reliable" here does not mean "give results with 100% certainty".)

> Could you please provide a syllogism that ends with the conclusion "Therefore formal claims are not about reality" to establish that mathematical/grammatical claims are not about reality?

Could you provide a syllogism that ends with the conclusion "Therefore claims about John are not about Jack"?

> That's what I'm asking, I'm not claiming one way or the other. If you know what it points to please let me know, and how you know. If you don't know, then you can't rule out the non-physical without knowing whether it points to something physical or not.

I am not ruling out the non-physical, if only because the term is ill-defined. You made claims about the existence of the non-physical, and you have yet to demonstrate that that's a thing, without constantly shifting the burden of proof to me. "Mathematics" clearly is used to refer to stuff that has at least physical representation, so I'll agree that mathematics has at least those physical aspects (like, books, brains, lectures, what have you). If you think there is more to it, then that's for you to demonstrate, not for me to disprove.

> But now you've stated that it depends upon the intent of the majority.

No, I have done that before, because that is how language is used. There is no need to state so explicitly. "Physicists believe earth is an oblate spheroid" does not mean "there are no physicists who don't believe earth is an oblate spheroid". That sentence simply is not the English translation of "forall <physicists>: <physicist> believes that earth is an oblate spheroid". It is common usage in English to use generalized statements with the implied understanding that they do not apply to all individuals, so you are simply deviating from standard English if that is how you choose to interpret the sentence.

It is what it is I guess.

> I suspect the problem is more the nailing down of definitions than the logical structure of the argument

Possibly, but where we are missing each other on definitions would likely be more noticeable in a syllogism.

> The point of testability is to weed out those claims that are indistinguishable from stuff that someone just made up.

Is it possible that a testable claim could imply another claim that is not testable? In other words, could you have an implicit reason for believing that something is true rather than an explicit one?

> I don't know, possibly not.

So, if it is possible that some aspects of reality are not testable, then it is possible that a claim about such an aspect of reality is not compatible with science?

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> You are believing something, it seems, because it hasn't been disproven to you.

That is not the case. I think there is great evidence. If it is false, then it is likely that my willingness to accept things is too generous, but I'll make any effort I can to get past that if that is indeed the position I find myself in.

> So, no matter whether they are true or false, you won't ever find a way to disprove them.

So, might you be attempting to say that non-testable claims are incompatible with doing science, rather than non-testable claims being incompatible with science itself?

> If you are interested...

I am.

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> No, by testing with an established scientific methodology. You simply use methods that you do already know are reliable to test other methods whether they are reliable.

So, is there a chain of scientific methods that establish further scientific methods with no beginning, or is there some first self-evident method, that can't be tested for reliability without being circular?

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> That's like asking "can claims about John be about Jack?"

So are you saying "you can't make a claim about John be about Jack, because John is not Jack", and to parallel "you can't make a claim about math be about reality because math is not reality"? What if John was Jack's middle finger, how could a claim about John not be about Jack?

>>>> So, it is not obvious to you that '1 < 2' does or does not have a referent, because the Peano axioms that '1 < 2' is derived from may or may not be a purely artificial construct of humans (or possibly more generalized evaluators)?

>>> I guess so? ...

>> My point is... If you don't know that '1 < 2' has no referent, then you don't know that mathematical claims are not about reality. I don't need to establish "'1 < 2' has a referent" to establish that you don't know whether mathematical claims are about reality.

> Let me clarify: ... '1 < 2' has no referent absent the axioms defined by mathematicians

Given the Peano axioms, and their evaluations and derivations by humans, does '1 < 2' have a referent?

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> But I have never made that claim, so what is the point of bringing it up?

You objected to my claim that "everything has an explanation" thinking I had not substantiated it. I get that you're not making the opposing claim, but in order to substantiate my claim I showed that the opposing claim can't be true. Even if your not making the opposing claim, your objection has no case because the opposing claim can't be true. If "not everything has an explanation" can't be true then "everything has an explanation" must be true. So you can choose to reject my claim, but that is a choice to reject a substantiated claim. If you don't think I have substantiated it, let me know why.

> I don't have a criterion? I don't think there is any distinction to be made, and if you think that there is, it's up to you to demonstrate some way to make the distinction.

You don't have a definition for physical? You don't think there is a distinction, or do you lack reason to think there is a distinction? For the criterion that I did give what was deficient? (you said that I didn't but I did: to be physical is to be able to have measurable effects or to be measurably affected)

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> For any action X, "being moral" is semantically equivalent to "being moral to do", and "immoral" is the negation of "moral". Therefore, your statement says that there exists an action that is moral and not moral at the same time.

My statements never fluctuate the moral value of X.

Another rephrase: It is immoral to do (A: X while thinking X is immoral) even if (B: X is moral). You'll be better off doing (C: any X while thinking X is moral) even if (D: X is immoral).

Regarding A and B: A is immoral, even though B says X of A might be moral. It is not doing X that is immoral, it is doing A.

Regarding C & D: The entirety of C is moral, even though D says X of C might be immoral. It is not X that is moral, it is C.

> The primary problem is not what you are saying, the primary problem is the method you use to justify it.

What is my method, and what is problematic with it?

> That you have in no way demonstrated that your version of morality does produce any of the results promised, it's just an empty assertion.

If, for my demonstration, I were to refer to the lives of the saints, they being better at achieving their goals of happiness than anyone else whom does not employ their methods by far, how might you object then?

> You don't have a definition for physical? You don't think there is a distinction, or do you lack reason to think there is a distinction? For the criterion that I did give what was deficient? (you said that I didn't but I did: to be physical is to be able to have measurable effects or to be measurably affected)

I have never heard a coherent explanation of what the distinction would be.

Yes, you said that to be physical is to be able to have measurable effect [...], but then denied that the measurable effects of the potential of the universe to change state (namely, the measured change in state) implies that the potential of the universe to change state is physical, while you also say that the same kind of measurement when applied to the effects of charged particles implies that electrons are physical ... so, it's completely incoherent. You have not specified any method that I (or you) could apply to an arbitrary object to classify it as either physical or non-physical, you have just given vague criteria that can be interpreted any way you like and then simply asserted that the potential of the universe to change state is non-physical while electrons are physical.

> Another rephrase: It is immoral to do (A: X while thinking X is immoral) even if (B: X is moral). You'll be better off doing (C: any X while thinking X is moral) even if (D: X is immoral).

So, it is, under certain circumstances, immoral to do what is moral?

Could you explain in what way something could be meaningfully moral that does not mean that doing it is moral? Like, how could a sentence of the form "X is moral" possibly mean anything other than "doing X is moral"?

You could just as well be saying "It tastes bad to eat what you don't like even if it tastes good" ... as if there is any essence to "tasting good" that is independent from someone eating the thing. All it means for something to "taste good" is that someone likes to eat it, and if you don't like to eat it, then it doesn't taste good, and the same thing rather obviously seems to apply to "being moral" and "doing".

> Regarding A and B: A is immoral, even though B says X of A might be moral. It is not doing X that is immoral, it is doing A.

That doesn't resolve the contradiction. All you are saying here is that (A) whether X is moral depends on one's personal opinion and (B) that whether X is moral is objectively defined. You maybe should decide for one of those. Either it's defined by one's personal opinion, then there is no objective definition, or there is an objective definition, then it's not defined by one's personal opinion. Both at the same time doesn't work.

> What is my method, and what is problematic with it?

What I meant was: The primary problem is not that you are saying that acting according to god's will will maximize your well-being (or whatever the exact claim was, I might be butchering it somewhat), the problem is (probably) how you come to that conclusion. Now, I am making some assumptions based on how theists generally justify their position, and it is possible, though somewhat unlikely, that you have a completely different justification. But in any case, the important question is whether your justification is sufficient, not whether the claim is false.

> If, for my demonstration, I were to refer to the lives of the saints, they being better at achieving their goals of happiness than anyone else whom does not employ their methods by far, how might you object then?

1. You couldn't have picked a more biased example. If I were to show you that there exist millionaires who got rich with day trading, would you consider that evidence that day trading generally makes people rich? If you want to figure out whether some method reliably gives a particular result, you have to look at all people who have attempted the method, not just those who are known for having ended up with a good result. Even terrible methods usually will not prevent all good outcomes.

2. That is an extremely limited perspective on happiness. To take a somewhat random example, one big contribution to lack of happiness in the world are diseases. The saints most certainly were not exceptionally good at either helping to cure or manage diseases in general, nor at avoiding getting ill. That doesn't take away from the forms of happiness they might have been able to achieve (not that I am all that familiar with the lives of Catholic saints), but it's not at all obvious that they were particularly good at achieving overall-happiness, nor that their goals were indeed limited to those particular kinds of happiness, and they didn't mind getting ill, for example.

If you want to figure out which of any competing methods for achieving a goal is better at doing so, you have to compare scenarios that actually use different methods. A saint who makes all decisions based on what they believe to be divine revelation, say, but who lives in a secular society where all other decisions are made based on scientific ideas, is not in fact using only divine revelation to achieve happiness, but possibly simply benefits from all the discoveries made by people using scientific decisionmaking for increased happiness, with possibly some comparably minor additional improvement due to their god belief, or whatever. If you wanted to compare methods, you would have to compare scenarios where either only one or only the other method is being used, or you risk misattributing results.

> Possibly, but where we are missing each other on definitions would likely be more noticeable in a syllogism.

Well, maybe, but part of the problem is that I don't really know yet what assumptions to build on that you would share. There are tons of ways to demonstrate incompatibility between religion and science, depending on which assumptions (definitions, in particular) you build on.

> Is it possible that a testable claim could imply another claim that is not testable?

Yes. Example: The earth being flat implies that invisible unicorns exist. "the earth is flat" is testable, "invisible unicorns exist" is not (arguably), and the implication is true (ex falso quodlibet).

> In other words, could you have an implicit reason for believing that something is true rather than an explicit one?

For one, testability is not a reason to believe a claim, as can be seen from the claim above that the earth is flat, which is testable, but demonstrably false. Lack of testability is a reason to not believe (because it's indistinguishable from claims that were just made up), testability is not a reason to believe (because the test might very well disprove the claim).

But the bigger problem with that question seems to be that it assumes some sort of essentialist testability. If we turn the implication around, we get a correct statement: If some claim B implies a claim A, and A is testable, then that is reason to not disbelieve B for lack of testability. But it makes no sense under any circumstances to label B as "untestable": Disproving A implies disproving B, and thus if you have some method for testing A, that method is also a test of B, and thus B is testable.

If a test could disprove your claim, then that is what it means for the claim to be testable, the amount of indirection between the claim and the test is irrelevant.

> So, if it is possible that some aspects of reality are not testable, then it is possible that a claim about such an aspect of reality is not compatible with science?

Yes. Making claims that are indistinguishable from stuff that's just made up is not compatible with science, because science is about making claims that are as reliable as possible, and claims that are indistuinguishable from stuff that's just made up is notoriously unreliable.

Or another way to put it: Making claims about the untestable implies the claim that you are able to detect the undetectable, which is self-contradicting. Either you can detect something, then you can use that to construct a test, or you can't, then you have no basis for claiming that you can.

> That is not the case. I think there is great evidence. If it is false, then it is likely that my willingness to accept things is too generous, but I'll make any effort I can to get past that if that is indeed the position I find myself in.

Well, granted, that is a likely alternative!

(Though I would say the problem is not necessarily that the evidence is false, but that it is insufficient ... or rather, that it should be. I mean, unless you really do happen to have the evidence that everyone has been waiting for ... ;-)

Also, good luck with that! :-)

> So, might you be attempting to say that non-testable claims are incompatible with doing science, rather than non-testable claims being incompatible with science itself?

I don't understand what the distinction is that you are making here.

> I am.

Well, let's see ...

http://www.atheist-experience.com/

Seems like a good starting point overall: Various hosts with different perspectives and styles, focus on talking to theists, so chances are they will address (or have addressed) what you are interested in, and obviously you could also try calling yourself if you feel like it, plus they regularly have guests who might have their own sites or youtube channels or whatever, so also a good way to discover more resources. You might also want to have a look at the tons of other programs they (the atheist community of Austin) have started to produce recently ... really, just dig around a bit and see whether anything fits your taste.

https://www.youtube.com/user/SansDeity

One of the hosts of the above, addressing specific topics more in depth.

https://www.youtube.com/user/AntiCitizenX https://casualentropy.blogspot.com/

Not necessarily very diplomatic, but they do dive into the more philosophical questions, so might be worth a read/listen.

https://www.youtube.com/user/magnabosco210

One guy (not the only one by far, you might also want to look for others) practicing street epistemology, with many talks addressing questions of religious beliefs.

https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org/resources

Not sure whether it's too relevant for you, but then, they have a collection of quite a wide range of different resources, so who knows, digging around there might turn up something interesting ...

If you want to read a book or two, the classics (almost) from Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, and Dennett probably aren't the worst idea, Dennett in particular if you want to get more into the philosophy side of things. Other than that, I guess I would rather start from the above and look out for recommendations from there.

> So, is there a chain of scientific methods that establish further scientific methods with no beginning, or is there some first self-evident method, that can't be tested for reliability without being circular?

Neither, really, though more the latter than the former. You could say that the basis that everything else builds on is the assumption that our senses are somewhat reliable, i.e., that if an overwhelming majority of people agree about some observation, the observation is probably a reasonably accurate description of something that actually happened. And mind you that not much reliability is necessary in order to bootstrap this, because you can largely test that, too.

But when you think about it, you'll notice that that assumption isn't actually necessary if you are careful with formulating your goal. Namely, if your goal is to have as accurate a model of reality as possible, then that still holds if you have absolutely no way to make any reliable determination about reality: If you have no way to make any reliable determination about reality, then, by definition, no method will give you a better result than pure randomness, and thus every method is optimal (and pessimal at the same time). And as soon as there is even a little bit of structure to reality that you could figure out, building on your senses is going to outperform ignoring your senses.

> So are you saying "you can't make a claim about John be about Jack, because John is not Jack", and to parallel "you can't make a claim about math be about reality because math is not reality"?

More precisely, because a statement about math is not a statement about reality, other than that math is part of (human) reality.

> What if John was Jack's middle finger, how could a claim about John not be about Jack?

That's just a pointless question. And that is not because it is categorically wrong, but because it brings no insight. There is not a single statement that you couldn't object to with "but what if some words had completely different meanings than what the speaker presumably intended, based on common usage?" "'The earth is round' is true!"--"But what if by 'true' they meant false, or by 'earth' they meant a banana, or by 'round' they meant flat?" The answer is simply: They didn't.

> Given the Peano axioms, and their evaluations and derivations by humans, does '1 < 2' have a referent?

Yes, those axioms, evaluations and derivations (well, particular aspects of them). Just the same way that 'Game of Thrones' has a referent, given the series, and characters of that series have a referent, given the series. None of that implies some essence that exists absent those human artefacts.

> You objected to my claim that "everything has an explanation" thinking I had not substantiated it. I get that you're not making the opposing claim, but in order to substantiate my claim I showed that the opposing claim can't be true.

No, you haven't. At best, you have shown that holding that position is not justified (arguably, you haven't done that either, but it doesn't really matter for this). But lack of justification for one position does not imply that the position is false, nor that there is justification for the opposing position. It simply means that there is no good reason to believe that one position. If neither a given position nor the opposing position is justified, then we simply don't know which of the positions is correct.

> Even if your not making the opposing claim, your objection has no case because the opposing claim can't be true. If "not everything has an explanation" can't be true then "everything has an explanation" must be true. So you can choose to reject my claim, but that is a choice to reject a substantiated claim. If you don't think I have substantiated it, let me know why.

Well, see above. You have to show that it is impossible for something to be unexplainable, not just that we don't know whether something is unexplainable.

> Yes, you said that to be physical is to be able to have measurable effect [...], but then denied that the measurable effects of the potential of the universe to change state (namely, the measured change in state) implies that the potential of the universe to change state is physical, while you also say that the same kind of measurement when applied to the effects of charged particles implies that electrons are physical ... so, it's completely incoherent.

Where did "'the measured change in state' is an effect 'of the potential of the universe to change state'" come from? I never stated this, thus you've made a straw-man and then drew comparisons with it to electrons, effectively making up the notion of me being incoherent.

===

> So, it is, under certain circumstances, immoral to do what is moral?

Moral =/= immoral

> Like, how could a sentence of the form "X is moral" possibly mean anything other than "doing X is moral"?

It doesn't. There is more to the form of my sentences that you are clearly missing. My form is "A: X while you think X is immoral", "doing A is immoral".

Another way to think of it. "A: X while Y". A is moral when "X: Throwing darts" and "Y: aiming at a dart board". You can modify Y to "aiming at someones face" and make A immoral with out changing X.

> Either it's defined by one's personal opinion, then there is no objective definition, or there is an objective definition, then it's not defined by one's personal opinion. Both at the same time doesn't work.

Oh please. The objective definition incorporates subjective conditions. Ex: Define F as the set of propositions {A -> B, C -> D, A -> ~D, C -> ~B}. F is an objective framework which never changes, but what is derived from F is subject to the truth values of A, B, C, and D.

===

> Now, I am making some assumptions based on how theists generally justify their position, and it is possible, though somewhat unlikely, that you have a completely different justification.

I'm curious. How do you think theists generally justify their position?

===

> 1. You couldn't have picked a more biased example. If I were to show you that there exist millionaires who got rich with day trading, would you consider that evidence that day trading generally makes people rich?

False analogy. I'm claiming that everyone whom employs the methods of the saints achieves their goals of happiness. Your analogy would only be valid if everyone got rich with day trading, and if that were the case then that would be evidence that day trading generally makes people rich.

> If you want to figure out whether some method reliably gives a particular result, you have to look at all people who have [carried out] the method, not just those who are known for having ended up with a good result. Even terrible methods usually will not prevent all good outcomes.

Replaced "attempted the method" with "carried out the method" because you can fail an attempt, but to fail to attempt the method is to not follow the method. There is not a single known instance of a person having carried out the methods employed by the saints that didn't end up with good results.

> but it's not at all obvious that they were particularly good at achieving overall-happiness

Depends on how you are defining overall happiness. Many saints died joyfully while being tortured to death.

> If you wanted to compare methods, you would have to compare scenarios where either only one or only the other method is being used, or you risk misattributing results.

The problem you'll find with this is that you're not likely to find anyone who employs no aspects of the methods used by the saints, particularly because such a person, and you'd agree, would be completely depraved.

> I don't really know yet what assumptions to build on that you would share.

Then just start with something, and if I don't agree with your assumptions then we can decide where to go from there. It doesn't have to be perfectly formal, but at least needs to flow via enumerated propositions. I fail to see how avoiding to produce a formal argument for your position isn't an attempt at equivocation. Why else attempt to only argue informally where the informality is more likely to generate greater ambiguity?

> Yes. Example: ...

Is it possible that a testable claim could be true and imply another claim that is not testable?

===

> ... I mean, unless you really do happen to have the evidence that everyone has been waiting for ...

Flat earthers may say the same to anyone whom tells them that there is great evidence that the earth is an oblate spheroid. Simply thinking that evidence isn't sufficient doesn't mean that it isn't.

> I don't understand what the distinction is that you are making here.

Science is a method. Doing science is to use the scientific method. The scientific method involves testing claims. Using the scientific method on non-testable claims is contradictory. The scientific method and the claims it has proven can co-exist with claims that can't be tested so long as those claims don't contradict the scientific claims. While those claims that can't be tested can co-exist with the scientific method, the incompatibility is in attempting to do science with those claims.

===

> Well, let's see ...

Thanks :-)

===

> And mind you that not much reliability is necessary in order to bootstrap this, because you can largely test that, too.

I get what bootstrapping means in compiler terms, but regarding methods of discerning truth, the notion of bootstrapping would seem to fly in the face of Gödel.

> But when you think about it, you'll notice that that assumption isn't actually necessary ... And as soon as there is even a little bit of structure to reality that you could figure out, building on your senses is going to outperform ignoring your senses.

Still sounds like your relying on the assumption that our senses are reliable... Like, you wouldn't know that using your senses out performs ignoring your senses unless you were already relying on your senses to determine that.

===

> More precisely, because a statement about math is not a statement about reality, other than that math is part of (human) reality.

When you apply the name "John" to one person and the name "Jack" to another, there are physical criterion to distinguish between John and Jack allowing us to verify via testing that a claim only about John is not a claim about Jack. Unless there are physical criterion that allows us to distinguish between math and reality, you've made a false analogy.

> The answer is simply: They didn't.

The conclusion I'm looking for is "They couldn't" and in particular "They couldn't intelligibly mean 'claims only about math are claims about reality'" and I want to know why. Only saying "they didn't" leaves the door open for someone else who could.

===

> Yes, those axioms, evaluations and derivations (well, particular aspects of them). Just the same way that 'Game of Thrones' has a referent, given the series, and characters of that series have a referent, given the series.

>>>>> The point is: A bunch of axioms and what results from them.

Under this axiomatic context: Do distances, spaces, cardinalities, and sets symbolically or conceptually exist absent of any physical representation?

===

> No, you haven't. At best, you have shown that holding that position is not justified (arguably, you haven't done that either, but it doesn't really matter for this). ... Well, see above. You have to show that it is impossible for something to be unexplainable, not just that we don't know whether something is unexplainable.

Explain how I haven't. You're just saying I haven't. Where is the misstep in my argument (formalized below)?

==========

1 ) If X has no explanation, then X can't be explained.

2 ) If X can't be explained, then X is unintelligible.

3 ) If X is unintelligible and X is a part of reality, then the claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" can be truthfully asserted.

4 ) If the claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" can be truthfully asserted, then all claims about reality as a whole are unintelligible.

5 ) If all claims about reality as a whole are unintelligible, then the claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" is unintelligible.

6 ) If the claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" is unintelligible, then the claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" cannot be truthfully asserted.

----------

7 ) X is a part of reality and X has no explanation (ASSUME for RAA)

8 ) X is a part of reality (Conjunction Elimination from 7)

9 ) X has no explanation (Conjunction Elimination from 7)

10) X can't be explained (Conditional Elimination from 1, 9)

11) X is unintelligible (Conditional Elimination from 2, 10)

12) X is unintelligible and X is a part of reality (Conjunction Introduction 11, 8)

13) The claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" can be truthfully asserted (Conditional Elimination from 3, 12)

14) All claims about reality as a whole are unintelligible (Conditional Elimination from 4, 13)

15) The claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" is unintelligible (Conditional Elimination from 5, 14)

16) The claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" cannot be truthfully asserted (Conditional Elimination from 6, 15)

17) The claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" can be truthfully asserted and The claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" cannot be truthfully asserted (Conjunction Introduction 13, 16)

18) Therefore: It is not the case that X is a part of reality and X has no explanation (Reductio Ad Absurdum from 7 to a contradiction on 17)

---------

Rephrasing of the Conclusion: Either X is not a part of reality or X has an explanation (De Morgan)

Rephrase of the Rephrasing: If X is a part of reality then X has an explanation (Implication)

==========

> Replaced "attempted the method" with "carried out the method" because you can fail an attempt, but to fail to attempt the method is to not follow the method. There is not a single known instance of a person having carried out the methods employed by the saints that didn't end up with good results.

Those methods don't possibly include as one step being successful? As in: If you don't get the good result, then the only accepted explanation is that you didn't do it right? Because that would be an untestable claim, then.

Also, in any case, that doesn't resolve the bias, as that sounds pretty much like a textbook example of survivorship bias. Or in other words: Why would you expect to know about someone carrying out the methods and failing? The fact that you don't know about them does not mean that they don't exist, and it seems pretty obvious that those who succeed would be way more likely to be known. Also, it seems just completely impossible to know that such a person never existed, given that anyone out of billions or humans could have been someone who tried?

> Depends on how you are defining overall happiness. Many saints died joyfully while being tortured to death.

Seriously? You are telling me that you can't recognize this as a case of mental illness, and the only possible explanation in your mind is that they found a path to happiness that would be usable by anyone? Sorry, but your claims really are getting absurd. Pretty much what you'd expect from someone who tries to find any justification for a predetermined conclusion, rather than following the evidence where it leads, though.

> The problem you'll find with this is that you're not likely to find anyone who employs no aspects of the methods used by the saints, particularly because such a person, and you'd agree, would be completely depraved.

I'm not sure that I would agree they would be depraved, I am not really sure what your point or argument even is there.

But in any case, sure, that might be a problem, but that is not my problem. If you make a claim, it's your responsibility to provide the evidence, and if that's too difficult, then that doesn't mean that your position is reasonable without evidence, it simply means that you are making unsubstantiated claims.

> Then just start with something, and if I don't agree with your assumptions then we can decide where to go from there. It doesn't have to be perfectly formal, but at least needs to flow via enumerated propositions.

Well, it's just that I have already tried that, and even the most basic concepts seem to be problematic. At its core it's pretty simple, actually, but I guess we'll just end up at exactly the same discussion we are already having:

1) Science says that untestable claims about reality are unreliable.

2) Religion says that certain untestable claims about reality are reliable.

3) Therefore, religion's claims as to the reliability of some claims about reality contradicts science's claims as to the reliability of those claims.

> Is it possible that a testable claim could be true and imply another claim that is not testable?

No.

> Flat earthers may say the same to anyone whom tells them that there is great evidence that the earth is an oblate spheroid. Simply thinking that evidence isn't sufficient doesn't mean that it isn't.

Yeah ... so? They are still wrong, and I am most likely not.

> Science is a method. Doing science is to use the scientific method.

No. "The scientific method" is a very naive conception of science that is possibly useful as a teaching device, but not much more.

You seem to insist on modeling science as a dogma. The problem is: It just isn't.

Doing science is to use whatever methods that deliver demonstrably reliable results and reject whatever methods that don't. There is no fixed method, because that in itself would be unreliable.

> The scientific method involves testing claims. Using the scientific method on non-testable claims is contradictory.

Then don't use "the scientific method"! It is well-established that untestable claims are unreliable (and I have explained at length why), and so science uses that knowledge to weed out unreliable claims. Weeding out unreliable claims is a very important part of doing science effectively.

> The scientific method and the claims it has proven can co-exist with claims that can't be tested so long as those claims don't contradict the scientific claims.

No, when science tells us that your claim is indistinguishable from stuff someone made up, then that is not consistent with you telling us that you know it to in fact be true. Either there is indeed a good reason to think it is in fact true, then science is wrong and needs to be corrected so it doesn't classify a reliable claim as unreliable, or there is not, then you are irrational when accepting it anyway.

All you are saying here is that it is reasonable to believe made-up nonsense as long as science hasn't disproved it yet. And just to make sure you don't misunderstand: I did not say that whatever model you propose is made-up nonsense. But as it is indistinguishable from made-up nonsense, either both your proposed model and made-up nonsense are reasonable to believe, or neither is, because you don't have the option to distinguish the indistinguishable.

> While those claims that can't be tested can co-exist with the scientific method, the incompatibility is in attempting to do science with those claims.

No, the incompatibility comes from the fact that both are claims about the same subject matter, namely reality, and that those claims are contradictory.

> I get what bootstrapping means in compiler terms, but regarding methods of discerning truth, the notion of bootstrapping would seem to fly in the face of Gödel.

All I mean is that you (kindof) have to make some assumption of sorts, because there is no way to prove ultimate reality or disprove hard solipsism. If someone insists that they are a brain in a vat, there is no way to prove to them that they are not. But still, most people are willing to accept that other people exist, at least as a useful model of the reality they experience, so you generally can build on that assumption to make convincing arguments.

> Still sounds like your relying on the assumption that our senses are reliable... Like, you wouldn't know that using your senses out performs ignoring your senses unless you were already relying on your senses to determine that.

You do know that by definition. Senses are, by definition, those inputs that reflect external reality. Ignoring all inputs about external reality cannot possibly be more successful at manipulating the external reality than using inputs about external reality. And mind you that that would include stuff like a "god sense", if that were a thing, and god were a part of reality that you could sense.

> Under this axiomatic context: Do distances, spaces, cardinalities, and sets symbolically or conceptually exist absent of any physical representation?

I don't know. I certainly don't see any reason to believe so.

> Explain how I haven't. You're just saying I haven't. Where is the misstep in my argument (formalized below)?

The primary problem with that whole argument is that it considers having an explanation a property of the thing to be explained, rather than of the subject (not) understanding the thing.

For one, that seems like an incoherent concept, but more importantly, it's just completely unhelpful. We were talking in the context of what we can know, and if we can't know something, it is completely irrelevant if it had some property of "having an explanation" that isn't accessible to us.

> Where did "'the measured change in state' is an effect 'of the potential of the universe to change state'" come from? I never stated this, thus you've made a straw-man and then drew comparisons with it to electrons, effectively making up the notion of me being incoherent.

Uh, well, I dunno, possibly I misunderstood something. Could you then provide a criterion by which to distinguish the physical from the non-physical, that could be applied to an arbitrary object to determine whether it is physical or non-physical, and that's not using just vague terminology that could eaily be interpreted in a dozen different ways?

> Another way to think of it. "A: X while Y". A is moral when "X: Throwing darts" and "Y: aiming at a dart board". You can modify Y to "aiming at someones face" and make A immoral with out changing X.

Sure. And what would be the analogue of "aiming at the dart board" in your abstract argument then? Wouldn't that be that it is moral to do what is moral when you think it is moral? So, it is immoral to do what is moral when you think it is immoral, and it is moral to do what is moral when you think it is moral. Or in other words: Whether something is moral is completely determined by whether you think it is moral, and whether it is moral has no effect on whether it is moral?

> Oh please. The objective definition incorporates subjective conditions. Ex: Define F as the set of propositions {A -> B, C -> D, A -> ~D, C -> ~B}. F is an objective framework which never changes, but what is derived from F is subject to the truth values of A, B, C, and D.

But what is your objective definition? There is no problem with having an objective definition that depends on subjective conditions. But there is a problem with having an objective definition that completely delegates to subjective conditions while also claiming to give evaluation results that are independent of (those) subjective conditions, which seems to be what you are doing.

There seems to be no situation in which your rule of "doing X is (im)moral if is you think it is (im)moral" would leave the morality of an action undefined, but you still claim that this is the exception to a rule that applies in other cases. What are those other cases?

> I'm curious. How do you think theists generally justify their position?

There isn't one justification, but still a somewhat limited set of justifications, that are all equally bad, but for different reasons. So, not really something I can answer in under a few dozen pages. But I guess the videos on Matt Dillahunty's youtube channel (SansDeity) do cover quite a lot of those, if you want to find out. They also had a counter-apologetics wiki at http://wiki.ironchariots.org/, but that's been offline for a while ... but, just looking into it, it seems like someone has put up a fork: https://religions.wiki/ --I guess that might be worth a look as well.

> False analogy. I'm claiming that everyone whom employs the methods of the saints achieves their goals of happiness. Your analogy would only be valid if everyone got rich with day trading, and if that were the case then that would be evidence that day trading generally makes people rich.

Well, possibly that is what you intended to claim, but you very much didn't. You wrote about saints as opposed to people who didn't use their methods, and you also didn't make the claim that all people who used those methods were saints. So, the analogy was perfectly fine.

How do you determine that something is not testable? How do you determine that something is unreliable?

When you say "Science says", what do you mean? When you say "Religion says", what do you mean?

>> Is it possible that a testable claim could be true and imply another claim that is not testable?

> No.

Why?

===

> Yeah ... so? They are still wrong, and I am most likely not.

How do you know that there is a greater chance that you are not wrong? What are the percentages you have calculated to conclude this?

===

> Doing science is to use whatever methods that deliver demonstrably reliable results and reject whatever methods that don't. There is no fixed method, because that in itself would be unreliable.

Is "use whatever methods that deliver demonstrably reliable results and reject whatever methods that don't" a fixed method?

> It is well-established that untestable claims are unreliable (and I have explained at length why)

Would you please explain "at length" once more in the form of a syllogism that ends with the conclusion "Therefore all non-testable claims are unreliable"?

> Either there is indeed a good reason to think it is in fact true, then science is wrong and needs to be corrected so it doesn't classify a reliable claim as unreliable

It's becoming more clear that we seem to have different criterion for what we consider testable. Would you consider all claims that are provable or disprovable testable? Would you consider all claims that if true, and not provable or disprovable, are not testable?

> No, the incompatibility comes from the fact that both are claims about the same subject matter, namely reality, and that those claims are contradictory.

What are some claims of science and religion (regarding religion, particularly fundamental ones) that are contradictory, as in they claim opposing things (X and ~X)? Or are the only claims that are incompatible as far as you are concerned the ones stated in your above syllogism?

===

> All I mean is that you (kindof) have to make some assumption of sorts, because there is no way to prove ultimate reality or disprove hard solipsism.

So, there is some first self-evident method that can't be tested for reliability without being circular?

> You do know that by definition. Senses are, by definition, those inputs that reflect external reality.

A definition you have assumed? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying anything is wrong with that assumption, it is a self-evident one, but call it like it is.

===

>>> More precisely, because a statement about math is not a statement about reality, other than that math is part of (human) reality.

>> When you apply the name "John" to one person and the name "Jack" to another, there are physical criterion to distinguish between John and Jack allowing us to verify via testing that a claim only about John is not a claim about Jack. Unless there are physical criterion that allows us to distinguish between math and reality, you've made a false analogy.

>>> The answer is simply: They didn't.

>> The conclusion I'm looking for is "They couldn't" and in particular "They couldn't intelligibly mean 'claims only about math are claims about reality'" and I want to know why. Only saying "they didn't" leaves the door open for someone else who could.

?

===

>> Under this axiomatic context: Do distances, spaces, cardinalities, and sets symbolically or conceptually exist absent of any physical representation?

> I don't know. I certainly don't see any reason to believe so.

Then you can't see any reason to believe '1 < 2' could make reference to anything other than the physical representations of distances of space, cardinalities of sets, and any other needed mathematical structures?

===

> The primary problem with that whole argument is that it considers having an explanation a property of the thing to be explained, rather than of the subject (not) understanding the thing.

==========

1 ) If X can't be explained, then X is unintelligible.

2 ) If X is unintelligible and X is a part of reality, then the claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" can be truthfully asserted.

3 ) If the claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" can be truthfully asserted, then all claims about reality as a whole are unintelligible.

4 ) If all claims about reality as a whole are unintelligible, then the claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" is unintelligible.

5 ) If the claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" is unintelligible, then the claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" cannot be truthfully asserted.

----------

6 ) X is a part of reality and X can't be explained (ASSUME for RAA)

7 ) X is a part of reality (Conjunction Elimination from 6)

8 ) X can't be explained (Conjunction Elimination from 6)

9) X is unintelligible (Conditional Elimination from 1, 8)

10) X is unintelligible and X is a part of reality (Conjunction Introduction 9, 7)

11) The claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" can be truthfully asserted (Conditional Elimination from 2, 10)

12) All claims about reality as a whole are unintelligible (Conditional Elimination from 3, 11)

13) The claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" is unintelligible (Conditional Elimination from 4, 12)

14) The claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" cannot be truthfully asserted (Conditional Elimination from 5, 13)

15) The claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" can be truthfully asserted and the claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" cannot be truthfully asserted (Conjunction Introduction 11, 14)

16) Therefore: It is not the case that X is a part of reality and X can't be explained (Reductio Ad Absurdum from 6 to a contradiction on 15)

---------

Rephrasing of the Conclusion: Either X is not a part of reality or X can be explained (De Morgan)

Rephrase of the Rephrasing: If X is a part of reality then X can be explained (Implication)

==========

> Could you then provide a criterion by which to distinguish the physical from the non-physical, that could be applied to an arbitrary object to determine whether it is physical or non-physical, and that's not using just vague terminology that could eaily be interpreted in a dozen different ways?

To exist and be non-physical is to exist and be incapable of changing state, to exist and be incapable of changing state is to exist and be non-physical.

===

> Whether something is moral is completely determined by whether you think it is moral, and whether it is moral has no effect on whether it is moral?

Wow have I done a terrible job of separating the conscience act from the external act. To be abundantly clear, it is immoral to violate your conscience. There can be two actions that occur when you perform an action: Choosing an action is itself an action, and performing the chosen action is separate from the choosing of that action. So if I where to correct my comments along these lines I would properly state: "It is immoral to [choose to] do what you think is immoral even if [what you choose to do] is moral, so you'll be better off doing [an action] you think is moral even if [that action] is immoral [because choosing to do otherwise would be immoral]. You are better off this way because you are not as/(at all) culpable for your actions if you didn't know they were wrong. That being said we are obligated to correct our neighbors' incorrect moral beliefs and to be open to being corrected."

===

> Sorry, but your claims really are getting absurd.

Argumentum ad Lapidem

Do you expect all true claims to sound rational before you've heard their justification? What did you expect given that I haven't been taking any steps to establish them?

> Pretty much what you'd expect from someone who tries to find any justification for a predetermined conclusion, rather than following the evidence where it leads, though.

"Ad Hominem"

Ouch. Like you've done with 'claims only about math are not claims about reality'? (<- ad hominem)

That might be what you'd expect, but if you claim that's the kind of person I am then you'll need to substantiate that claim.

Lol, I've stated that I'm not taking any steps to establish my claims to you, as they don't usefully tie into to our compatibility discussion, several times now.

> ... it simply means that you are making unsubstantiated claims.

I've stated that I'm not taking any steps to establish my claims here several times now. Echo echo echo ...

Because they are indistinguishable from stuff someone just made up. Do you agree that making shit up is not a reliable way to determine facts about reality?

> It's becoming more clear that we seem to have different criterion for what we consider testable.

I suspect that's a central problem, yes. The scientific notion of testability is something people with a religious background often seem to have difficulty wrapping their head around.

> Would you consider all claims that are provable or disprovable testable? Would you consider all claims that if true, and not provable or disprovable, are not testable?

First of all, just to make sure we aren't getting confused: This is all about "real truths", not about "formal truths", as "proof" is generally the term used by mathematics to describe derivation of formal truths, not so much by scientists, who would rather use terms like "evidence" or "demonstration" to describe, well, evidence for a hypothesis ... though people often colloquially use "proof" for either, even scientists, but it should be understood that it is being used in a meaning distinct from the mathematical use.

Also, I suspect that you are probably completely on the wrong track with "provability", even if I assume that you mean some sort of evidence-driven thing, because testability is not about whether some claim has been shown to be true or false, but about whether the claim could be shown to be false.

Testability is not a question of showing that something is true, because that isn't really a thing with inductive reasoning: For any model where you have not actually tested every prediction that you could derive from it (and those tend to be infinitely many for any non-trivial claims), you can not possibly be sure that there are no circumstances under which it would make a wrong prediction. So, testability is only concerned with showing that a claim is false, by demonstrating a contradiction, because you can indeed be sure that a model that makes predictions contradicted by a single test is incorrect (assuming you did not screw up the test, of course).

Now, of course, for a claim to be considered testable, it is not required that you demonstrate that it is false, that would be kinda pointless. The requirement is that you could potentially demonstrate it to be false if it were false.

So, for example, "water boils at 100 °C at atmospheric pressure" is testable, because there is an experiment that you could do that would contradict the claim if it weren't true. For example, if water actually only boiled at 200 °C, you could put together a demonstration where you heated water to 150 °C, showing that it didn't boil, thus contradicting the claim, thus demonstrating that it is false.

On the other hand, "invisible unicorns exist" is not testable, because there is no experiment that you could possibly do that would show it to be false. No matter what you observe about the world, there is no possible observation that could contradict the claim. That is simply because the claim does not make any predictions about observable reality--and if there is no prediction, there is no way to make an observation that would contradict any prediction.

Another common form of untestable claims, especially from religious people, is of the form "God listens to prayer and sends you help when you need it. When you pray, but you don't receive the help you think you need, god knew better that you actually didn't need the help you thought you needed." So, you pray, and either you get what you prayed for, then that is counted as evidence that god listened to the prayer, or you don't get what you prayed for, then that is counted as evidence that god knows better than you. The important point is: No matter what happens, it is counted as evidence for god. But an experiment where the result is counted as evidence for a particular hypothesis, no matter what the result of the experiment is, doesn't actually provide any evidence for anything, because the conclusion from the experiment does not actually depend on the result of the experiment. If you count every possible outcome as evidence for your hypothesis, there is no point in even doing the experiment, the result is the same as if you were to simply come to the conclusion without an experiment. Or in other words: Such a claim is indistinguishable from something that someone just made up.

> What are some claims of science and religion (regarding religion, particularly fundamental ones) that are contradictory, as in they claim opposing things (X and ~X)?

Religion: "It is warranted to believe that a god exists."

Science: "It is not warranted to believe that a god exists."

> A definition you have assumed? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying anything is wrong with that assumption, it is a self-evident one, but call it like it is.

WTF? Yes, I am assuming a shared definition of every single word that I am using. Are you expecting me to spell that out, as if it could possibly be any different? Yes, I am assuming that you share the definition of "to be", and the definition of "different", and the definition of "yes", and the definition of "definition", and the definition of "to assume", ... seriously?

> 1 ) If X can't be explained, then X is unintelligible. [...]

Did you change anything? This is again treating the explainability as a property of X, which is incoherent nonsense. What we are talking about is that some particular subject/class of subjects possibly won't ever gain certain knowledge. So, a sensible way to express that is something along the lines of "If X will never be understood by humans, then ...". Maybe you could rewrite your argument in those terms?

> To exist and be non-physical is to exist and be incapable of changing state, to exist and be incapable of changing state is to exist and be non-physical.

So, how does that distinguish the physical from the non-physical, when the physical isn't even mentioned?

> Wow have I done a terrible job of separating the conscience act from the external act. To be abundantly clear, it is immoral to violate your conscience. There can be two actions that occur when you perform an action: Choosing an action is itself an action, and performing the chosen action is separate from the choosing of that action. So if I where to correct my comments along these lines I would properly state: "It is immoral to [choose to] do what you think is immoral even if [what you choose to do] is moral, so you'll be better off doing [an action] you think is moral even if [that action] is immoral [because choosing to do otherwise would be immoral].

So, how exactly are you adding anything of substance here? All of those additional words don't do anything about the brokenness of the argument, unless you are saying that it is possible to act in a way that is not in accordance with how you choose to act ... which is just gibberish. The subjective idea of what is moral still fully determines the choice, and unless you can choose to act differently that you choose to act (WTF?), any independent claims about the morality of the action still are as vacuous as they were before.

> You are better off this way because you are not as/(at all) culpable for your actions if you didn't know they were wrong. That being said we are obligated to correct our neighbors' incorrect moral beliefs and to be open to being corrected."

What does that have to do with anything? I thought we were talking about morality, not culpability, nor obligations to neighbors?!

> Do you expect all true claims to sound rational before you've heard their justification? What did you expect given that I haven't been taking any steps to establish them?

No, but I expect that anyone who is serious about a discussion doesn't just suddenly dump on me some outlandish claims with the expectation that I will accept them for the purposes of building arguments on them. It should hardly be a surprise to you that I don't share the assumption that those claims that you were making are true, so it is obviously completely pointless to even mention them if you don't intend to justify them. You might as well just be saying "I am right" ... might be true, but it's obviously guaranteed to be unconvincing.

> "Ad Hominem"

Nope. That simply wasn't an argument at all, just an observation.

> That might be what you'd expect, but if you claim that's the kind of person I am then you'll need to substantiate that claim.

Correct. Which is why I am not making that claim. I am simply telling you that you maybe should check extra carefully whether that is what you are doing. Because I, ultimately, can't.

How do you determine that a claim is not falsifiable? How do you determine that a claim is unreliable?

When you say "Science says", do you mean "Science is defined as such ..." or "Science has arrived at the conclusion ..."? When you say "Religion says", do you mean "All religions assert ..."?

> Because they are indistinguishable from stuff someone just made up. Do you agree that making shit up is not a reliable way to determine facts about reality?

While I agree that making shit up is not reliable, some claims that are "indistinguishable from stuff someone just made up" aren't necessarily untrue. Given that claims "indistinguishable from stuff someone just made up" could be true, one might think that there may be claims which, though are non-testable, are reliable for use. If that is not the case, then you have to establish the claim "non-testable claims are unreliable" in order to support what you're saying sciences asserts ("that untestable claims about reality are unreliable").

Also, when you say a claim is reliable, what is it reliable for?

===

s> Is it possible that a testable claim could be true and imply another claim that is not testable?

z> No.

s> Why?

?

===

> ... testability ... is about whether the claim could be shown to be false. ... The requirement is that you could potentially demonstrate it to be false if it were false.

You may need to elaborate for me, because true claims can't potentially be shown to be false in principle. So, are we calling claims falsifiable because we don't know beyond inductive reasoning that they are true and can out of ignorance come up with test that potentially demonstrates they are false?

===

z> Doing science is to use whatever methods that deliver demonstrably reliable results and reject whatever methods that don't. There is no fixed method, because that in itself would be unreliable.

s> Is "use whatever methods that deliver demonstrably reliable results and reject whatever methods that don't" a fixed method?

?

===

> Religion: "It is warranted to believe that a god exists."

> Science: "It is not warranted to believe that a god exists."

Assuming your saying "It is not warranted" because the claim "God exists" is not falsifiable, how has it been shown that the claim "God exists" is not a falsifiable claim?

===

> WTF? Yes... ... seriously?

Oh, so you agree that science relies upon the reliability of the senses and that the claim "our senses are reliable" is not falsifiable in principle?

===

z> More precisely, because a statement about math is not a statement about reality, other than that math is part of (human) reality.

s> When you apply the name "John" to one person and the name "Jack" to another, there are physical criterion to distinguish between John and Jack allowing us to verify via testing that a claim only about John is not a claim about Jack. Unless there are physical criterion that allows us to distinguish between math and reality, you've made a false analogy.

??

===

z> The answer is simply: They didn't.

s> The conclusion I'm looking for is "They couldn't" and in particular "They couldn't intelligibly mean 'claims only about math are claims about reality'" and I want to know why. Only saying "they didn't" leaves the door open for someone else who could.

??

===

s> Under this axiomatic context: Do distances, spaces, cardinalities, and sets symbolically or conceptually exist absent of any physical representation?

z> I don't know. I certainly don't see any reason to believe so.

s>Then you can't see any reason to believe '1 < 2' could make reference to anything other than the physical representations of distances of space, cardinalities of sets, and any other needed mathematical structures?

?

===

> Did you change anything?

Did you read it? The first argument contains 18 points and said "X has". The second argument contains 16 points and does not say "X has".

> This is again treating the explainability as a property of X, which is incoherent nonsense.

Could you quote something from the second argument that treated "explainability as a property of X"?

===

> So, how does that distinguish the physical from the non-physical, when the physical isn't even mentioned?

I guess the implication wasn't obvious enough. To exist and be physical is to exist and be capable of changing state, to exist and be capable of changing state is to exist and be physical.

===

> ... unless you are saying that it is possible to act in a way that is not in accordance with how you choose to act ... which is just gibberish.

"Intend" is probably a better word than "choose".

===

> No, but I expect that anyone who is serious about a discussion doesn't just suddenly dump on me some outlandish claims with the expectation that I will accept them for the purposes of building arguments on them.

Like 'claims only about math are not claims about reality'?

Correct. Which is why I am not saying that claims that are indistinguishable from stuff that someone just made up are false. Really, even stuff that someone in fact just made up is not necessarily untrue. It is possible to make shit up and end up with the truth. But most claims that you could make up are false (for any claim A that you could make up, you could also make up at the very least the claim that not A, and at most one of those two can be true), which is why just making things up is not a reliable way to determine truth.

> Given that claims "indistinguishable from stuff someone just made up" could be true, one might think that there may be claims which, though are non-testable, are reliable for use.

"reliability of a claim" means the probability that the claim is true, based on what you know. The fact that some of the claims might be true does not mean that the probability of any particular claim being true is high.

> Also, when you say a claim is reliable, what is it reliable for?

It's not reliable _for_ anything, it is simply likely to be a correct description of reality.

> You may need to elaborate for me, because true claims can't potentially be shown to be false in principle.

Yes, they can, and that is the most important part of it that you have to wrap your head around.

The claim "water boils at 100 °C (at standard pressure ...)" is probably true, I suppose you would agree?

Here is an observation that could potentially be made that would count as falsification of the claim: Water in liquid form at 200 °C (at standard pressure ...).

Testability is not about actual demonstration, it is about potential demonstration. There has to be some demonstration that, if it were done, would be accepted as demonstrating that the claim is false.

The whole point is that for actually true claims, those demonstrations will never be actualized. But for actually false claims, they might, and often are. And that is how we weed out false claims, thus increasing the concentration of actually true claims in what we consider "state of the art human knowledge".

It is important to remember that "water boils at 100 °C" is not something we know for absolutely certain to be true. All attempts to falsify it so far have failed, that is all: All experiments so far have not produced any result that contradicts that claim. But for all we know, someone could demonstrate liquid water at 200 °C tomorrow (or water steam at 50 °C, or whatever--there are tons of demonstrations that would be accepted as falsification of that claim), and that would establish that this claim is false, after all.

> Assuming your saying "It is not warranted" because the claim "God exists" is not falsifiable, how has it been shown that the claim "God exists" is not a falsifiable claim?

What would you accept as falsification of the claim of the existence of the god that you believe in?

> Oh, so you agree that science relies upon the reliability of the senses and that the claim "our senses are reliable" is not falsifiable in principle?

All you are really saying here is "What if reality isn't real?" That is just a pointless objection. Whatever "ultimate reality" looks like, we still have to deal with the reality that we experience, and we most certainly experience what we experience, and the possibility that we might not be experiencing "ultimate reality" does not change that we are experiencing a reality, and that it is meaningful to make statements about that reality.

> Did you read it?

Yes, but it didn't seem like you changed anything of substance, in particular with regards to my criticism.

> Could you quote something from the second argument that treated "explainability as a property of X"?

The problem is that you are writing so massively ambiguous statements that it is very hard to nail down what you actually mean, and thus where exactly you treat explainability as a property of X. Even the first half of a sentence, "If X can't be explained", certainly sounds like "can't be explained" is a property of X. To avoid some of that ambiguity, I would very much prefer if you were to explicitly write down your argument completely avoiding "can be explained" or "has an explanation", instead using only "is known to humans" or "will be known to humans", and show that way that humans will at some point in time know everything.

And yes, I am aware that I am skipping a lot of stuff. I am getting the impression that we aren't getting anywhere with those due to way more fundamental misunderstanding, and I suspect a lot of it boils down to testability one way or another, so I think we are better off concentrating on that for now, instead of wasting a lot of time with going in circles.

Your argument states "Science says that untestable claims about reality are unreliable" and not "Science says that making things up is not a reliable way to determine truth". Your argument also states "Religion says that certain untestable claims about reality are reliable" and not "Religion says that making things up is a reliable way to determine truth". There is a difference between the reliability of finding the truth by making up a claim and the reliability of the claim itself.

Your argument (from what I can tell as it is written) is not about the reliability of making up a claim but about the reliability of a claim itself. Even if your argument were referring to the reliability of making up a claim, I don't know of any religion that says or concludes that making up claims is reliable. Even if one did, that wouldn't lend itself to making the blanket statement "Religion says ...".

> "reliability of a claim" means the probability that the claim is true, based on what you know. The fact that some of the claims might be true does not mean that the probability of any particular claim being true is high.

Defining, conversely, the "unreliability of a claim" as the probability that the claim is false, your argument becomes the following:

> 1) Science says that untestable claims about reality have a probability of being false.

> 2) Religion says that certain untestable claims about reality have a probability of being true.

> 3) Therefore, religion's claims as to the probability of being true of some claims about reality contradicts science's claims as to the probability of being true of those claims.

Given that your argument makes no reference to what is more or less probable, no contradiction has been established (pending whether you mean unreliable to mean less likely and reliable to mean more likely (but then you'd need to establish how those probabilities were derived)). I don't want to put words in your mouth, so you may want to rephrase your argument because I doubt this is what you meant given that it does not establish your point.

> It's not reliable _for_ anything, it is simply likely to be a correct description of reality.

You can't/don't rely on scientific claims "_for_" anything? As in, the claims of science are not reliable for things like putting satellites into orbit or pursuing further truths, they are just likely a correct description of reality?

>> Assuming your saying "It is not warranted" because the claim "God exists" is not falsifiable, how has it been shown that the claim "God exists" is not a falsifiable claim?

> What would you accept as falsification of the claim of the existence of the god that you believe in?

You're shifting the burden of proof. I have at least five independent criterion, but you don't need to know them. Not having something to accept as falsification for the claim "water only boils at 100°C or greater (under 1 atm)" doesn't mean that there can't be one. So unless you have some solid demonstration of your claim, because lack of evidence doesn't seal the deal, then you have no convincing basis for claiming "'God exists' is not a falsifiable claim".

> All you are really saying here is "What if reality isn't real?" ...

Hahaha, what?? Not at all! I'm saying that, given what seems to be your want of disregarding all non-falsifiable claims as "indistinguishable from stuff someone just made up", you'd also be disregarding the claim "our senses our reliable" as "indistinguishable from stuff someone just made up" because that claim is not falsifiable in principle (it being non-falsifiable something we seem to agree on since we think it is self-evident).

If you think the claim "our senses are reliable" is falsifiable, then YOU would be the one likely to assert the question "What if reality isn't real?".

> And yes, I am aware that I am skipping a lot of stuff. ...

Thank you for mentioning it. I couldn't tell if stuff was being missed or ignored. It can be easy to miss things in walls of text.

> ... so I think we are better off concentrating on that for now ...

Sure, I've done more skimming myself.

What is "the reliability of the claim itself", if it is not the reliability of the method that is used to estalish that claim?

> Given that your argument makes no reference to what is more or less probable

Yes, it does. Reliability (of a claim) is a scale expressing a probability of being true. "reliable" is the high probability end of that scale, "unreliable" is the low probability end of that scale.

> (but then you'd need to establish how those probabilities were derived)

Yes, I have, over, and over, and over, even in my last post.

> You can't/don't rely on scientific claims "_for_" anything?

That wasn't the question. Obviously, the more likely a claim is true, the more you are justified to rely on it as the basis for making decisions about the future. But the phrase "claim A is reliable" makes perfect sense without a "for X", simply as an expression of how likely the claim is to be true.

> As in, the claims of science are not reliable for things like putting satellites into orbit or pursuing further truths, they are just likely a correct description of reality?

Being a correct description of reality is what makes a claim useful for making predictions about the future behavior of that reality, and thus for influencing reality in such a way that a satellite does behave as intended/predicted.

> You're shifting the burden of proof.

No, I am not, I am simply performing the empirical observation that is required to establish whether the claim is testable.

> Not having something to accept as falsification for the claim "water only boils at 100°C or greater (under 1 atm)" doesn't mean that there can't be one.

Actually, that is all that testability is about: Whether there is something that would convince you that you are wrong if it were demonstrated to you. For "water only boils at 100°C or greater (under 1 atm)" that should be the case, because that statement under standard English language rules has semantics that imply a contradiction with certain potential observations. But ultimately, what counts is whether whoever is making the claim would accept those demonstrations as contradicting their claim.

> (it being non-falsifiable something we seem to agree on since we think it is self-evident).

No, not at all.

The problem is that that whole question is massively ambiguous, and the answer is completely different depending on the interpretation, or possibly some interpretations are just nonsensical questions.

If you mean whether our senses correctly reflect "ultimate reality": That would indeed be unfalsifiable, and for that exact reason it is indistinguishable from shit someone made up, and thus a highly unreliable claim.

If you mean whether our senses generally produce a coherent picture of an outside world: That is falsifiable, in that we can cross-correlate different senses, between perceptions of the same sense over time, as well as between our own and others' perceptions. I am guessing that that is maybe why you say that this is self-evident, but really, it's way more than just self-evident. Actually, that is exactly how we do know in how many ways our senses indeed are not reliable. There is a lot of redundancy in our senses (and indirect methods of perceiving the world) that allows us to test the reliability of each sense, with no sense in particular being one that we just have to trust blindly.

But mind you that all those tests of our senses do not in any way demonstrate that we can sense "ultimate reality". Possibly, we can't, but that is not a problem for our ability to navigate the (perceptual) reality we find outselves in, or for the testability of that fact.

Wut?? If you can't see that "the reliability of the claim itself" =/= "the reliability of the method that is used to establish that claim", then I think we are done here because this would make for an insuperable disagreement. In the first phrase 'reliability' refers to the claim, and in the second it refers to the method. The claim and the method that is used to establish that claim are two different things.

> Yes, I have, over, and over, and over, even in my last post.

No you haven't. The method 'making-things-up' we already agree is unreliable, but you have not established that non-testable claims have a greater probability of being untrue rather than true. If I missed it, perhaps you could quote what you think has been so obviously stated that you needn't bother repeating it? I'll ask you to include an inequality proof and/or the percentages that have been calculated to reach/assert this conclusion.

> But the phrase "claim A is reliable" makes perfect sense without a "for X", simply as an expression of how likely the claim is to be true.

So you think these phrases are equal?: "claim A is reliable" = "it is likely claim A is true" = "the method that is used to establish claim A is reliable"

> Being a correct description of reality is what makes a claim useful for making predictions about the future behavior of that reality, and thus for influencing reality in such a way that a satellite does behave as intended/predicted.

And claims that are correct descriptions of reality are not reliable "_for_" such use?

> No, I am not, I am simply performing the empirical observation that is required to establish whether the claim is testable.

If you are performing said observation now to form a basis for your claim, did your claim not have a basis before?

> But ultimately, what counts is whether whoever is making the claim would accept those demonstrations as contradicting their claim.

So, whether a claim is falsifiable is subjective?

Also, are claims of the form "X is not falsifiable" falsifiable? If so, how might they be falsified?

> If you mean whether our senses generally produce a coherent picture of an outside world: That is falsifiable, in that we can cross-correlate different senses, between perceptions of the same sense over time, as well as between our own and others' perceptions.

Is the claim "our senses have at least one way in which they are reliable" falsifiable?

Yes, of course they are! But there simply is no such thing as "the reliability of the claim" that is distinct from "the reliability of the method used to arrive at the claim", because reliability as an attribute of the claim itself is a category error. The way "the reliability of the claim" is commonly used is simply as a short-hand to refer to what more precisely would be called "the reliability of the method used to arrive at the claim".

If you take the claim "this bridge can bear 1632 tons", then what determines the "reliability of that claim" is how it was derived, there is no inherent reliability to just the claim itself. If someone rolled some dice to create that number, then that is a completely unreliable claim. If someone put 1632 tons of steel blocks on the bridge and it didn't fail, then that is at the very least a lot more reliable than rolling some dice. The fact that the exact same claim has completely different reliability, depending on how it was arrived at, should tell you that the reliability is actually a property of the process used to derive it, and not of the claim itself, even if that is how it is commonly phrased.

> The method 'making-things-up' we already agree is unreliable, but you have not established that non-testable claims have a greater probability of being untrue rather than true.

Do you agree that made-up claims have a greater probability of being untrue rather than true?

Do you agree that non-testable claims are indistinguishable from claims arrived at by making them up?

> So you think these phrases are equal?: "claim A is reliable" = "it is likely claim A is true" = "the method that is used to establish claim A is reliable"

Seems sensible to me!

> And claims that are correct descriptions of reality are not reliable "_for_" such use?

Oh, sure, of course they are! I had understood your question to mean that you thought that the specification of a particular application was missing, or something along those lines. But yes, that they are reliable for such use is the implication, of course.

> If you are performing said observation now to form a basis for your claim, did your claim not have a basis before?

Really, I have implicitly switched the claim, simply to enable a productive discussion.

The problem is that "god" is a word that is used to refer to so many different and mutually contradictory concepts that demonstrating any claim for all of those concepts can be a lot of work, and often is even impossible because someone will come along and claim that god is the sun or something (and under that definition, obviously, god does exist, but probably isn't Jesus, say). So, before, I made a claim that is generally true for the vast majority of the god concepts that people have, just for a wide variety of reasons, depending on the specific concept.

But explaining how the claim is true for most/all god concepts is a lot of work--and also probably not the most useful thing to do, when you, presumably, have a specific god concept in mind, so focusing on that seems more productive than getting lost in ideas that you may not agree with anyway. Which is why I switched from the general claim to a more specific claim that's presumably more relevant to you.

> So, whether a claim is falsifiable is subjective?

No, it's not that the falsifiability is subjective, but rather that what ultimately matters is the falsifiability of what you actually think, not of what someone else interprets your statements to mean. If someone says "water boils at 100 °C", you would presumably agree that that is a statement that implies certain possibilities to falsify it, and as such the statement would qualify as a falsifiable claim, based on how the English language is generally understood to work. But if you were to demonstrate liquid water at 200 °C to whoever is uttering that sentence and they would still keep making the same statement, then their internal model that they try to express as "water boils at 100 °C" is still untestable, and that is still a problem.

> Also, are claims of the form "X is not falsifiable" falsifiable? If so, how might they be falsified?

By showing that whoever is holding the supposedly unfalsifiable position would actually accept some demonstrations as reasons to reject the claim?

> Is the claim "our senses have at least one way in which they are reliable" falsifiable?

Are we talking about "reliable for detecting ultimate reality" or "reliable for detecting the reality that they are detecting"?

Also you (in response to my question "And claims that are correct descriptions of reality are not reliable "_for_" such use?")> "Oh, sure, of course they are!"

> The way "the reliability of the claim" is commonly used is simply as a short-hand to refer to what more precisely would be called "the reliability of the method used to arrive at the claim".

Would you provide a source on this being the common usage?

> Do you agree that made-up claims have a greater probability of being untrue rather than true?

If that is the case, it is not obvious, because for every claim "X" there is also the claim "not X", meaning that exactly half all claims are true. So you'll need to establish what would tip that balance.

> Seems sensible to me!

Let A be the true claim "this bridge can bear 1632 tons", and the method that produced it is "making the claim A up on the spot".

Would you still say these phrases are equal?: "the claim A is reliable" = "it is likely the claim A is true" = "making the claim A up on the spot to establish claim A is reliable"?

=====================

> By showing that whoever is holding the supposedly unfalsifiable position would actually accept some demonstrations as reasons to reject the claim?

Are you asking me?

=======

0) According to you: If X is falsifiable, then X "is not something we know for absolutely certain to be true, [but that] all attempts to falsify it so far have failed, that is all".

===

1) If the claim "X is not falsifiable" is falsifiable, then "X is not falsifiable" "is not something we know for absolutely certain to be true, [but that] all attempts to falsify it so far have failed, that is all". (Substitution 0)

2) According to you: The claim "X is not falsifiable" is falsifiable"?". (ASSUMPTION)

3) Therefore: The "X is not falsifiable" "is not something we know for absolutely certain to be true, [but that] all attempts to falsify it so far have failed, that is all". (Conditional Elimination from 1, 2)

=======

In other words, by your definitions, there is no way to establish with certainty that a claim is not falsifiable, if its not being falsifiable can be falsified.

=====================

>> Is the claim "our senses have at least one way in which they are reliable" falsifiable?

> Are we talking about "reliable for detecting ultimate reality" or "reliable for detecting the reality that they are detecting"?

Reliable for detecting the reality that they are detecting.

> Also you (in response to my question "And claims that are correct descriptions of reality are not reliable "_for_" such use?")> "Oh, sure, of course they are!"

I'm not sure what you are getting at?! If you think I should be objecting to you using the word "correct", because that is a property of the claim itself and not dependent on the method used to arrive at it: Sure, assume that I object to that. But it seemed to me that that wasn't relevant to what you were actually asking about, namely, whether reliability of a claim implies potential usefulness of that claim _for_ some further purpose.

> Would you provide a source on this being the common usage?

I really don't understand why you are asking this. I already explained why the notion of reliability of the claim itself doesn't make any sense/is a category error. And I suppose that you would agree that people do use phrases like "claim X is reliable", and that it is usually perfectly understandable what they mean by that. Also, under the interpretation that I suggested, you generally do understand what people are trying to tell you when they use such a phrase, while avoiding the obvious logical nonsense that follows if you assume that reliability is a property of the claim itself.

Now, it may well be true that many people who use such a phrase have never really thought through what exactly they mean by that, and thus have never made a conscious decision of whether they are using one definition or the other. But that isn't a reason to think that they likely intend to use a definition that leads to contradictions.

It seems like you are asking me to provide a source for the claim that people are not generally intending to talk nonsense. It's not that that isn't a thing that can be investigated empirically, but I doubt that you actually disagree on this.

> If that is the case, it is not obvious, because for every claim "X" there is also the claim "not X", meaning that exactly half all claims are true. So you'll need to establish what would tip that balance.

Well, while that is kinda true, it's also not really particularly relevant in this context? Even if there were a 50/50 chance, that would not be a useful source of information, would it?

The other problem with that perspective is that it counts redundant claims more than once. Like, if some measurement of X could give the result 0, 1, or 2, then "X is not 0" is the same claim as "X is 1 or 2", just phrased differently. So, if you want to get a useful result, you have to rather compare non-redundant claims of the same structure and at the same resolution. If you do that, you notice that there in particular are tons of claims about numerical values, and that there is an infinite number of either discrete values of or equal-sized intervals that you could plug into any such claim to make up new claims--but for any particular measurement, only one of those infinitely many possible values or ranges will correspond to reality, and almost all claims that you could make up this way will be wrong.

If you don't find that convincing, I guess we might also replace "made-up claims are almost all false" with "made-up claims are no more likely to be true than chance", as you seem to already be agreeing with that? I don't think I drew any conclusions that require the stronger claim, so we might as well go with a lower lower bound instead.

> Let A be the true claim "this bridge can bear 1632 tons", and the method that produced it is "making the claim A up on the spot".

> Would you still say these phrases are equal?: "the claim A is reliable" = "it is likely the claim A is true" = "making the claim A up on the spot to establish claim A is reliable"?

Well, they all evaluate to false, so yes? Though I don't understand why you mention that the claim is true, as that makes no difference!? In the scenario you are describing, there is no reason for anyone to believe that it is true, because all they know is that someone made it up.

> Are you asking me?

No, I am telling you--though I wondered why you asked the original question, as the possibility to falsify that claim seems kinda ovious!?

> In other words, by your definitions, there is no way to establish with certainty that a claim is not falsifiable, if its not being falsifiable can be falsified.

So?

> Reliable for detecting the reality that they are detecting.

Then I don't even understand what the point of that question is. Like, what else would our senses detect, if not what they detect?

Could we maybe transfer this to a different scenario where it isn't as easy to get confused by intuitions? Like, assume there exists a robot with a bunch of sensors. And let's assume you can remote-control this robot, and remotely read what its sensor inputs measure. Now, with this robot you could do what I described above: You could check all those sensors for consistency. And maybe you could somehow communicate with other robots and check for consistency with the readings of their sensors. None of that guarantees that the robot (and thus you through it) sees "real reality", for all you know, it was built with all sensor connectors linked up to a computer that generates fake sensor signals from a simulation running on that computer, including a simulation of the stimuli from interacting with other (actually simulated) robots. But you said that that wasn't what we were talking about. So, if we aren't talking about that, then we are talking about actual sensors!? Is your question whether this guarantees that the sensors are free of any defects? (Well, no?) Or whether it is guaranteed that the robot itself can not be defective? (No?)

Or ... what else? I really don't understand what you are asking here.

I have never stated that I thought this. You may have thought my wording implied that, but that has never been what I was getting at. You've incorrectly inferred this on your own, so I never addressed any statement you made regarding it as it was getting away from the point. But clearly since you've struggled to wrap your head around that, I've now spelled it out for you.

> It seems like you are asking me to provide a source for the claim that people are not generally intending to talk nonsense. It's not that that isn't a thing that can be investigated empirically, but I doubt that you actually disagree on this.

No, I've been getting at asking why you think people mean "the method used to arrive at claim X is reliable" rather than something like "claim X can be trusted for use", when "claim X is reliable" is stated.

Your stance is also noticeably less coherent when it is considered that "claim X" can't be replaced by "this wrench" or "this car" and not lack significant ambiguity ("the method used to arrive at this car is reliable"). Where as if you were to replace "claim X" in "claim X can be trusted for use" for "this car", you'd get "this car can be trusted for use".

What you've done is equivocate, using "reliability" differently for claims versus how it is used in all other areas. In particular using it in reference to X on one hand and in reference to the method that derived X on the other, which has nothing like a mechanical analog to help indicate that your usage is one that matches the usage of anyone else outside of your own head.

> Even if there were a 50/50 chance, that would not be a useful source of information, would it?

Then perhaps what you mean is: Made-up claims have a greater probability of being untrue than claims that are not made up. If that is the case are you asserting that "Any method that doesn't make up claims has a greater probability of being true than any methods that do make up claims"?

> Well, they all evaluate to false, so yes?

So, you think it is possible for some claim to be true and it not be likely that said claim is true?

> So?

According to you: The assertion of any claim that is not falsifiable is not warranted.

This has no certain basis, by your definitions. As a result this means that no claim should be ignored just because it is currently considered to not be falsifiable.

Another question comes to mind. Say you claim "water only boils at 150°C+ at 1 atm". You then perform a test on water at "1 atm", and it boils at 100°C. Having falsified the original claim, according to you, you can now say "it is not the case that water only boils at 150°C+ at 1 atm".

After falsifying the claim "water only boils at 150°C+ at 1 atm", is the claim "it is not the case that water only boils at 150°C+ at 1 atm" falsifiable, and if so how might it be falsified?

> Then I don't even understand what the point of that question is. Like, what else would our senses detect, if not what they detect?

That's partly my point, they wouldn't, and the other part is to have you recognize that there is a self-evidently true claim that is not falsifiable. You can't falsify the claim "our senses have at least one way in which they are reliable". To say that you could would be to say you have the potential to reliably, with your senses, demonstrate that the claim "our senses have at least one way in which they are reliable" is false.

Imagine I came to you and told you that I had determined that some bridge could bear 1632 tons, and that I had determined that by rolling dice, one for each digit. You don't know anything else about this bridge. Would you say that my claim is

(a) likely to be true

(b) likely to be false

(c) you have no clue how likely it is to be true or false

?

> This has no certain basis, by your definitions.

So? I didn't claim I had a certain basis. Do you have a certain basis for any belief? And if not, why are you bringing this up?

> After falsifying the claim "water only boils at 150°C+ at 1 atm", is the claim "it is not the case that water only boils at 150°C+ at 1 atm" falsifiable, and if so how might it be falsified?

By demonstrating water that boils only at 150°C+ at 1 atm?!

> That's partly my point, they wouldn't, and the other part is to have you recognize that there is a self-evidently true claim that is not falsifiable. You can't falsify the claim "our senses have at least one way in which they are reliable".

But that isn't self-evidently true, it's simply tautologically true. "What we perceive is what we perceive". Duh?

As far as we know, everything we perceive could be illusion/simulation/whatever WRT "ultimate reality", so making that claim in the sense that our senses are in any way reliable for detecting "ultimate reality" (i.e., "the programmer that wrote the simulation") is unwarranted, and there certainly is no evidence supporting such a claim.

And far as "the reality we perceive" is concerned, it's a trivial, tautological statement, not some insight about the world. That statement would even be true if we didn't perceive anything.

> To say that you could would be to say you have the potential to reliably, with your senses, demonstrate that the claim "our senses have at least one way in which they are reliable" is false.

Which you can't because it's a logical contradiction to show that a tautological claim is false.