BasketCase said:
But there were no tools available at the time to
verify the idea.
The concept of falsifiability isn't based on thinking something up; it's based on
proving that something true or false.
When the theory of the atom was first proposed, I'm pretty sure the Greeks hadn't yet invented the particle accelerator.
And you know something else that wasn’t invented at the time, too? Modern scientific method, particularly falsifiability, which was coined by Popper in the 20th century. Back than, many “unscientific” ideas were not properly identified as so.
This reply, however, may be misleading of the nature of scientific pursuit, and as well as the nature of falsifiability, which you are mishandling here.
First, falsifiability is
NOT about proving something to be true or false. First, because the very concept of falsifiability is a manner to handle the
impossibility of making a perfect proof of something. It was proposed exactly as a manner to mitigate Hume’s
problem of induction, and it stablishes the utility of accepting positive repetitive experiences as sources of postulates.
As for negative experience, well… something that you prove to be false is
not something falsifiable, but something, well… plain false. It should be obvious, while apparently it wasn’t, that something that is still under analysis is something that haven’t been proved wrong yet.
So, you see, falsifiability is, diametrically contrary to what you said, not something closed on what’s true and what is false – but the enunciation of the best guess on what is true, while our attempts to disprove it meet no (conclusive) success.
What bring us to the Greek theory of atomic materials. Apparently, it was not plain “guessing”, but a extrapolation of the dynamics of the macroscopic world. That kind of digression, which Kant, in his “critique of pure reason” named an “inductive proposal”, is perfectly valid axiomatic start for an scientific idea. There were no means to verify it back than, true…
(noting again, though, that to attest the falsifiability you need, in principle, rather than testing the subject, to be able to offer a test that, if carried on, would expose whatever part of the idea that happened to be truly wrong)
… but you’ll notice that the Greeks never tried to compose
utility out of it. While the proposal remained distant and theoretical for lack of inductive means to assert it’s validity, that axiom remained as elusive as their philosophical or sociological ideas. Only after the means to test came, humanity start handling these ideas as facts, and begun to pursuit utilities from them.
That is, again, perfect usage of induction and of the scientific method, even if technical difficulties have expanded it’s delivery to a time spam of a few hundreds of years.
beingofone said:
Yup, yup; but ain`t it convenient those who believe they experience consciousness, even though they cannot find it in the objective, but have blind faith in trillions of independant cells that "IT" just forms without guidance.
All bow before the all powerfull IT that shapes consciousness all on ITs own. We know IT is not God because we know Its and IT and cannot possibly be God - cause we know about IT.
IT made me and I worship the IT - and IT is smarter than any God cause IT created consciousness. I just converted to IT - I am free - yipeee.
IT is invisible but not like a stupid God or something. It can be invisible because I like IT and do not like God.
And therefore; IT is
Hooorrray! Those of us who deny God are as much creatures of faith as those who accept him.
“It” akbar!
No no no no no. Seriously now.
Beingofone, I don’t think it’s convenience at all (though I don’t deny how astonishing it is that conscientiousness exists).
Philosophical constrictions aside, our humane experiences is: human beings exists; human beings have conscience. Yes, “all I know is I don’t know”, “I think therefore I am”, yata, yata, yata – as I said, philosophical constrictions aside, these two postulates are the axiomatic starting point.
Hence, there being humans, these being conscientious, some relation between the entities and the conscientiousness ought to exist, yes? And which is that?
Well, no one is sure, but to apply the same things Greeks did in my reply above – to extrapolate dynamics that resemble what is known – as in, too simple brains in humanities cradle, simplistic (or no conscience at all) existed; as brain got bigger and more complex, the capacities to analyze and digress grew, and the result today is what we call conscience – is a perfectly valid axiomatic point for a scientific idea. Our world is, after all, a world of ordinary things, even if some of these ordinary things are astounding. This is a perfect application of the
principle of parsimony or, as it is better known in the forums, Ockham/Occan/Ocan’s razor.
Can this be wrong? Yes!!! There can, in theory, be an extraordinary factor leading the forming of our consciousness (or making the entire universe, as it seems to be your point of contemption)… and that factor may even be God. However, an extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence, that you guys fail
completely to provide. All you can offer is a jump of faith – “how this have happened is not known/not explained, hence it ought to be God” – making it, again, nothing but the
God of Gaps, to keep with the more commonplace soubriquet.
Therefore, rather than “not invisible like an stupid god” (do I smell playing victim here? I haven’t been patronizing you to deserve these bits and pieces of Irony have I?), the factor of conscience is ordinary (though complex), blind and deprived of volition, and unparalleled with any for of humane volition. “It” does not think, and “it” is nothing except an event, deserving of “praise” no more than gravitation or attrition.
I don’t know why you, fans of the most esoterically oriented perceptions of reality and humanity’s relation with it (in contradiction with more materialistic debaters such as your’s truly) have this, so common, drive to dismiss the basic dissentions of ours overviews, and suggest that deep down our disagreement is superficial, and in the end, we are all beings of faith. I honestly cannot agree that this is the case at all – our dissention is very profound and reaches the most basic tenets of reality's workings.
I won’t say you have to agree with me, for obviously you don’t, but really, can’t you please at least acknowledge that much?
Regards
.
