I don’t have a clear what you are talking about either honestly. Give me a universal truth that cannot be, as you put it “buttresed by sense experience” or that is not a logical consequence of known facts. Just one example. I’ll point out that your example represents faith and not knowledge, but that is getting ahead of ourselves.
Bob:
Reread the statement in the original link and then tell me if you can use sense experience to PROVE a universal truth based on the inductive reasoning that perceives causation as a means of providing true knowledge. I am all for getting an answer.
[quote=“fred smith”]Bob:
Reread the statement in the original link and then tell me if you can use sense experience to PROVE a universal truth based on the inductive reasoning that perceives causation as a means of providing true knowledge. I am all for getting an answer.[/quote]
I think what you mean is that you want me to give you an example of a universal truth that is provable with sense experience or inductive reasoning. OK. The universe is an infinitely complex web of cause and effect relationships. This is true down to the smallest detail. For example say… the paper in my printer. How did it get there in exactly that form? To answer that “completely” would invlove an infinite series of formulations regarding economics, biology, physics etc. leading you all the way back to the big bang and beyond I suppose. Everything is like that. From the paper in my printer to the fact that I choose to respond to you instead of taking a nap. This is what we “know” about the universe. In fact it is all we know. Call it a universal truth if you like. Indeed, lets take it one step further and call it a universal truth based on observation and reasoning. As I recall, all the way from the beginning of this paragraph, that is what you asked for.
Sorry that won
I think it worked really well. The universe “is” an infinitely complex web of inter-related cause and effect relationships. Surely that qualifies as a “universal truth.” And it is based solely on observation and logic. By the way I am still waiting for even one example of a unviversal truth that is “not” based on the same. Just one.
Your example of the angles of a triangle is such a truth. Historically, the laws of geometry came from measurements taken from physical reality. However, it has been shown that these same laws, Pythagoreans theorem and such, can also be proven from set theory or
[quote=“ggarret1”] The fact that the physical universe behaves according to mathematical laws is validation of the
In fact according to Einstein Pythagoreans Theorem is such a
[quote=“ggarret1”] Hence, Pythagoreans Theorem can only be viewed as an
Yes, Einstein used Pythagorean
[quote=“ggarret1”]Yes, Einstein used Pythagorean
We say one plus one is equal to two. This can only be true if we assume one is equal to one. It may seem obvious that one is equal to itself. Yet, we say we have ten fingers even though two of them are thumbs. No two apples are exactly equal though each is one apple.
When we apply numbers to the real world one is never equal to one. Hence, Einstein
Balderdash. When we say we have ten fingers what we mean is we have ten digits. Four fingers and two thumbs. If enough of us do that often enough the meaning of the word “finger” will gradually expand to include the notion of thumbs and this change will come to be reflected in dictionairies. It will no longer be “incorrect” to say we have ten fingers. That is how language works.
[quote]When we apply numbers to the real world one is never equal to one. Hence, Einstein
A magnificent mathematical construct such as the Mandelbrot set gairrett.tzo.com is not a human invention but a human discovery. An alien mathematician in the Andromeda galaxy studying the properties of complex numbers would discover the same set with the same bizarre and beautiful properties. A million universes could come and go yet this eternal truth would remain.
It has no external existence. It exists only in the metaphysical sense.
The concept of any number or quantity is a human invention, just like any word is a means to convey thought. But just because we don’t have a definition for an object, an emotion, an action or an effect doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I can’t claim to be so deftly versed in the philosophical arts as you fine gentlemen, and I’m not sure which side of the argument this will fall, but the four pages of this thread sound like a “if a tree falls in the woods…” kind of discussion (and that question was invented to EMPTY one’s mind!) I happen to believe the tree does make a sound, just as I believe the mathematics that created the fractal art has always existed, it just hadn’t been terms we could understand before–(and by ‘we’ I mean mathematicians…I never made it past calc!) It has no acknowledged bearing on us until we name and define it, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It’s just a matter of proving it, ie gravity. Before we defined it as a law, we were still governed by its effect.
I can believe a tree I don’t hear makes a sound because trees I have seen and heard fall make a sound and I can infer that the unwitnessed tree makes a sound as well.[/b]
Examples of it exist on our computer screens.
This has gotten a bit off of my original point which was to discuss intelligent design with no caps. Bob seems like many others to be enamored of science but does not realize its limitations. Let{s take a few comments from Heidegger
Your Heidegger is gobbledy gook that nobody can understand. What we know is that there exists a swirling mass of matter and energy that comes together and falls apart on a scale so vast that there are literally no words to describe it. Somehow this swirling mass gave rise to consciousness on this planet. Nobody knows how but they might someday somehow discover that too. In any event this consciousness that has arisen is an anxious, creative little beast that likes to know the answers to questions. Religion provides answers but they are not real answers.
[quote=“fred smith”] Let{s take a few comments from Heidegger [quote]
Indeed.
What does this mean? Is it just semantics again?
Being in the process of becoming? Is that a fancy way of saying that things are changing all the time? I think we had that figured out already, and I think it was the study of chemistry that really banged it home.
Everything stops moving? Heck, I dunno, you tell me.
You don’t really think it is funny. You just say that because you have said it so many times before and can’t think of anything original to say now.
Oh really professor? And what would lead you to such a profound conclusion?
Another stunning insight! Anyway since I am the only one participating on this side of the thread and since those are my words I think I can safely assume that they are actually directed at me. I know you are a little simple so let me explain that I don’t really think that I have it ALL figured out, just that I have it figured out as well as anyone else here and certainly as well as you. If I really wanted to learn more I’d talk to a scientist.
And many didn’t. Go figure.
What religions do is tell people the answers when really there are no answers. Nobody knows the answers to the basic issues raised here.
I never said I was contemptuous of religion. I think religion and the literature and music and philosophies it inspires are awesome manifestations of the profound anxieties and longings involved. Absolutely stunning, and ultimately, absolutely flawed.
Bob, you simply have no understanding of the basic concepts that underlie philosophy or metaphysics. Have you ever studied any of this? Obviously not. Okay, have your fun. But it is impossible to have a debate with someone about these issues when that person so clearly does not have even a clue about where and how debate on this has developed. You can pretend all you want that you are just a commonsense kind of guy though the first two of those syllables would perhaps be more accurate than a total inclusion of all three, but the actual underpinnings to which you seem to think that you have free latitude to base your ideas on concepts that have not been conceptually proved. Anyway, enough from me.
Try reading some Feynman - there is a very good lecture on just this very subject in The Joys of Finding Things Out. There is no crisis of basic concepts in science as the basis of science is an unending scepticism and questioning of all things, including itself. Me thinks Heidegger is confusing engineering with science.