Posted on 03/16/2019 6:52:06 PM PDT by Simon Green
Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.
— Karl Popper
Your statement is not a weak one.
But what I’m proposing is that truth is as prevalent in science as anywhere else—no less prevalent than water in a river.
It seems you are right to claim the abstract conclusion of science—that desired product expressed in universal terms and derived from the preliminary ingredients which exist in particular terms—is not a pure example of truth. But the particulars constituting any given study are in fact pure examples of truth. Perhaps most significantly, the path of science is always fixed precisely and immutably in the direction of truth.
Although these quotes you’ve provided don’t do it, any other quote by Popper proposing to separate science from truth is in fact the claim separating him from a reasonable understanding of both science and truth.
To continue our discussion on this level, let’s consider the relationship of truth and science with another principle which is as important in its particulars as it is in its universal. Namely, freedom.
Take heed. There are those who would take from us the freedom that remains after they plundered what we had before. Their methods and their means include trying to get us to believe lies like the one claiming science is separate from truth.
In the long history of human thought lots of truths have gone by the wayside. To restate what I said earlier Truth is that which has yet to be proven false. If there is no way to prove it false than it can’t be truth. Personally I can’t think of any absolute truth. I grieve that the universe may be Probabilistic.
The difference is a semantic quibble relating to what truth means.
Can truth tell what right or wrong is? Good or evil?
Can science?
Right On! Homeopathy cured my sinus infections that docs over years were running out of antibiotic options.
ALL true scientists are forever open not just to new ideas, but new data, new methods and that very little is absolute. 3.1415926535...
Yes, yes and no.
As for your first comment on semantic quibbling, consider carefully what I stated to you earlier about speaking and thinking.
If there is no absolute truth, then the statement “There is no absolute truth” is absolutely true. But this would make the statement self-contradictory and therefore false.
As you can see, absolute truth necessarily exists.
The problem with the falsifiability test for truth is that some things will be considered unfalsifiable when in fact they are not.
There truly are energies in the universe and around us that we don’t yet have a full scientific understand of. There were so many we didn’t understand until that day we did. There are more.
Gd or however you want to call Him created All. There is more than even our brightest can just poof learn or discover. It can take years or generations.
How are so many near death experiences similar? How do some people know the exact moment their faraway relative is in sudden danger or died unexpectedly? These things are real. It happened to my family.
I believe as long as you aren’t being tricked for money, it is fine to allow some “supernatural” into your thinking. Positive energy, and passing it around amongst your acquaintances, works for many reasons. Why knock it? Even if you can’t prove it. It is harmless.
“Yes, yes and no.”
Your answers:
Can truth tell what right or wrong is? Yes
Good or evil? Yes
Can science? No
“...consider carefully what I stated to you earlier about speaking and thinking.”
I don’t know what statement you’re referring to.
Truth is the basis for everything you speak and everything you think.
Good comments.
With regard to the supernatural and those who aren’t willing to accept it—their belief system usually, if not always, includes a belief in mainstream science. But mainstream science includes a belief that the laws of nature had a beginning, which tells us nature is finite.
If nature is finite, then it can’t be the measure of all things. It must be subject to something greater than itself.
Here’s another way to think of the question of a probabilistic universe:
For any given probability, there is a corresponding unity, or whole. That is, if something is defined as a 51% probability, the value 51 exists only as compared with 100. The 100 is the absolute.
Exactly. If the universe has a Creator, nothing would be impossible. If we, with the amazing minds we humans have among us, “discovering” all these scientific things that actually exist, can conceive of things, then a creator must have created all of them, including wondrous science we do not yet know.
My default setting is to assume that the probability of any event occurring that has yet to occur is 50%. If it has occurred than it approaches 100%.
>The problem with the falsifiability test for truth is that some things will be considered unfalsifiable when in fact they are not.<
True that.
You didn’t respond to what I actually said. Instead you responded to something I didn’t say. Why is that?
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