Re: Praying man let his daughter die

On Aug 5, 8:36 pm, snex <x...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


And I will not be dragged into your black and white view of the world
which is not only all to familiar to the more unpleasant religions,
but also hampering scientific inquiry,

bull*** liar. scientific inquiry is based on the idea that there *is*
some answer out there that we can get. your bull*** thinking is
nothing more than a pitiful justification to keep superstition around.

So you do not consider mathematics science, even though it deals with
objects that exists in ways different from tables? I would say taht
this does indeed hamper scientific inquiry. As did the people who
objected against Newton that his invisible force able to act over vast
distances was "occult" and introducing illegitimate objects onto
science



where e.g. the question "do
numbers exists and what does this mean for doing set theory" is quite
relevant and interesting.

no, they are neither, and nobody "studies" these topics.

Ah, the argument from ignorance. You mean: I don't know anybody who
does. Not quite the same.

you can try for starters:

Harty Field: "Which Undecidable Mathematical Sentences Have
Determinate Truth Values?", in H. Garth Dales and Gianluigi Oliveri,
ed., Truth in Mathematics (Oxford University Press 1998), pp. 291-310

ibd Science Without Numbers (Blackwell 1980), and " Realism,
Mathematics and Modality" (Blackwell 1989),

You could then contrast his view with that of Penelope Maddy "Realism
in Mathematics", Oxford University Press, 1990.




mathematicians simply do not care whether or not numbers "exist" or if
there is some meaningful definition of "exist" that applies to
numbers. no matter how such a question gets answered, math will be
done the same way it always has.


It depends quite a lot if you accept for instance non-constructive
sets or non constructive proofs ( intuitionist do not, platonists
like Cantor do), your attitude to and use of very large numbers (such
as subtle cardinals for instance)
or the continuum hypothesis.

See e.g. Cantor, Georg (1955, 1915). Contributions to the Founding of
the Theory of Transfinite Numbers. New York: Dover; Cantor, Georg
(1890), "Ueber eine elementare Frage der Mannigfaltigkeitslehre",
Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker-Vereinigung 11: 75–78

vs his critics
Poincaré, Henri (1908), The Future of Mathematics, Revue generale des
Sciences pures et appliquees, 23,
Mayberry, J.P. (2000), The Foundations of Mathematics in the Theory of
Sets, Encyclopedia of Mathematics and its Applications, 82, Cambridge
University Press


its a stupid waste of time question that one only asks while on drugs.

Well, almost all the really great mathematicians have asked it, and
published widely about it. Of course, many of them worked in the 19th
century when opiates were more generally available , so you may have a
point.


but you fail to realize that this undercuts your ability
to claim that evolution is somehow a preferred view over creationism.

"Preferred" relative to what standard? If i want to decide which one
is the better religion, I would not necessarily go for the ToE (could
though) If I want to decide which one is better science, I go for the
ToE

based on what? youve already abandoned the idea that "existence" is a
meaningful term.

If I were snex, I would accuse you of lying about my position here.
Since I'm not: this is not at all what I said. It is, as per Kant,
not a term subject to scientific investigation and analysis, but one
presupposed by science (and any other discipline) . Only if one
presupposes your particular metaphysics that only scientific terms are
meaningful woudl one come to your conclusion. I think I made it pretty
clear that I don;t, so for me existence has meaning (to be the value
of a bound variable, a rather precise one) just not the one you try to
impose on everyone

in other words, you accept stupid bull*** premises, therefore stupid
bull*** conclusions are acceptable to you. congrats, youre still an
idiot.

Very likely, quite a lot of philosophy is. But I share my bull***
with people like Kant and Quine and so I'm quite happy about it. Your
own version of bull*** by contrast I find as unappealing as the
company that comes with it.

in other words, youre perfectly happy to be stupid, so long as you
have company. and then you wonder why people flock to stupid
fundamentalist religions. go figure.


Depends on the company. If I have to take a bet if say Quine or Kant
are likely to be right, giving everything they sauid to support their
theory, as opposed to you being right, having aid virtually nothing to
support yours apart from screaming "it's the job of the others to give
evidence for their claims", I think I know where the rational person
woudl place his money


it.

evidence for evolution may "exist" for you, but who> says it "exists" for creationists? maybe it doesnt "exist" for them!
their view is just as valid!

Relative for a different meaning of exists. So what?

so stop telling them that they are wrong. stop insisting that public
schools teach science to children, when every other view is just as
valid.

That would not be the relevant meaning relative to the one given in
science. But I would indeed not object to teach children comparative
religious studies.

thats not the same thing. you are claiming that all of these views are
equally valid,


even when compared to science.

No, that is you claiming what I allegedly claim. Guess what, you are
wrong again.

thus we should teach
children that, not simply say "this is what those folks believe."
science has a privileged status in schools, but according to your
argument, it shouldnt.


I'm not sure what you mean with privileged status, but I never said
that religion should be taught as part of science as far as I
remember. Of course, if I'm wrong then you will easily be able to
point me to the post where I did.




The way in which the objects of your specific theory exists decide to
what field of human experience and knowledge they belong. For science,
these are different from religion, ethics or art. If I want to do
science, I do it by the methodological rules of science, if I do
religion, I do it by the methodological rules of religion.

and those rules would be...?

We rather have been over this. Conceptual analysis, consistency checks
etc? You remeber? The sort of things text based disciplines do?

and the sort of things that religions deliberately avoid. so ill ask
again, what are the methodological rules of religion? how can i use
them to evaluate a statement such as "god exists" for truth or
falsity? why cant religious people all agree on the results?

As I said before, you can evaluate this only relative to a text - it
is textual analysis.

then its not a method for discovering truths, so stop lying and saying
it is.

Yep. "Juts not the type of information you are after. It is true that
Mrs Marple is a very clever detective despite her lack of worldly
knowledge, but she uses analogy very cleverly to overcome this
shortcoming".

<snip>

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