Rise of atheism: 100,000 Brits seek 'de-baptism'

[Final-Fan]

appolose said:

Final-Fan said:

appolose said:
1.  The only way an error could enter into your line of thought was if you got it wrong in the first place.  Unless you're saying what if something came along and screwed up your mind to make something that didn't follow; in that case, that wouldn't have anything to do with your memory, but your ability to be logical.

If that's what you're saying.

2.  Now we're back to square one; thinking that empiricism somehow has an evidence going for it.  It has been my contention thus far that sense data says nothing (agreed) and that our judgements of sense data are arbirtrary.  Thus, assuming empiricism takes utter and complete faith (as it were).  Our arguments about consistency were about those positions.

On a side note, I disagree with Occam's razor, as it doesn't follow that the idea that assumes the least amount of statements is the most likey correct, because it is unknown if reality, in reality (lol), depends on only a few things or a trillion things (or infinite things).

1.  No.  If your memories are false, it's like someone handed you a problem with half the work done and said, "Here, you do the rest."  So you can be perfectly logical and have a flaw in your remembered work.  And like I said, if you tried to double check the work you could never KNOW that it was really you who double checked it and not your untrustable memory. 

2.  IMO you're abusing the words "utter and complete".  Suppose I'm on a mountain and lost and it's so foggy I literally can't see more than five feet.  Do I go uphill or downhill to get off the mountain?  Well, I might be in a small basin that I'd have to climb out of, but the best guess is downhill unless/until I hit the bottom of the basin.  Or, suppose I'm literally "so dizzy I can't tell which way is up".  Well, if I'll never stop being dizzy, I just have to pick the direction I THINK is up and see how it works out. 

As for Occam's razor, I agree that it isn't necessarily right, but your objection is just wrong if I understand it right, since the principle is that it's the simplest explanation that also explains things as well as the others.

1. So, you're saying, for example, if I had proved "If A and B, then C", but then thought to myself that I had proven "D" and moved onto "If D and E, then F", correct?  Then that still wouldn't matter because in the second argument it's still an "if" (because whatever premesis I thought I had used to reach that were "if"s as well).

2.  Since it's the latter of the situations, yeah, you'd have to pick a direction (well, not really), but whatever way you picked you would have absolutely no reason to have picked it.  Same thing in this situation.  If you want to make a statement about reality, you're going to have pick a method of truth with no indication (we're dizzy and it's foggy).

It's the principle in Occam's razor I find to be wrong.  It's not necessarily true that the simplest explanation that works as well as the others is most likely because it's unknown how complex the explanation really is.

1.  No, I was thinking that you'd previously proved "If A and B, then C" and were proving "If C and D, then E" and were going to conclude "If A, B, and D, then E" but you have no way of knowing if the first proof is really valid just because you remember it being valid. 

2.  Incorrect.  You don't KNOW which way is up, but there is a direction that you THINK is up.  The indication is not guaranteed but it is there. 

/facepalm "not necessarily" is the reason it's only likely.  [edit:  Never mind what I deleted.][edit2:  Also, please remember that Occam's Razor applies to of the available explanations and considering the available data.  I suspect that the source of your problem may be in there somewhere.]