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

[appolose]

A1.1.  "we just recognized sense data can supports any worldview/belief"  When did I say that?  (If you think "Fine" was conceding all of the above, it was not; it was merely expressing a sentiment akin to "okay, let's try again".) 

A1.2  Please try harder; I don't see where there might be a contradiction in my intended communication.  Should I have said "belief" in the place of the first "judgment"? 

A2.1  O. M. F. G.  I have been asserting that it is possible for a worldview to make assertions that, combined with sense data, contradict the same worldview and therefore disprove itself.  So even though potentially infinite numbers of worldviews would not be disproven, some would, and so the statement "sense data can support ANY worldview/belief" is not correct. 

A2.2  Hell, let me try simplifying things.  Isn't it possible for a worldview to contradict ITSELF with regard to sense data, so that whichever way it comes out it's still wrong? 

B1  What I meant was, although all interpretations relied on hypotheticals, empiricism had fewer/less complex.  i.e. having senses seems simpler to me than robots or God faking it for their own purposes.  Especially robots, because that posits ANOTHER world. 

B2  "Calling it practical doesn't change the fact that it's useless as a method. (lol)"  Being the only one that we can interact with, how is it not the most practical?

A1

    Oh sorry, I thought I understood that we agreed on that elsewhere somehow.

 

A2

     Oooh, you were trying to set up a hypothetical scenario to disprove the statement “sense data can support any worldview/belief”. That’s what I was confused about. (I thought to myself, “Your view? My view? A view?”).

     Forgive my use of terminology; I think there’s been a misunderstanding with what I mean in saying sense data can support any worldview/belief. Certainly, as you say, you could have a person believe one thing and then later believe something contrary to it based on his interpretation of sense data.

     I thought it was understood but what I was referring to was AT ANY POINT in your sense data it could support any* worldview/belief. If a guy changes his mind over a period of time from a different interpretation of sense data… well then, ya, he’s contradicted his original interpretation. He’s changed his belief on the matter.

     Getting into explaining my position again: Because of the possibilities afforded by sense data, he didn’t have to pick said interpretation and so change his mind. My whole point is that it’s possible to interpret his sense data in favor of anything* at any point. Sorry for another simplistic example: He lands on the moon and could now believe either 1. The ‘cheese moon’ apparently turned to rock by a scientific phenomenon well beyond his explanation. 2. God, again, changed the moon to rock while in flight 3. He’s hallucinating. 4. The cheese got very hard and changed color. Etc. (Need I say again, the Matrix murders all hope in interpreting correctly or looking for consistency or probability.)

     Thus at any point… your use of sense data is useless if you’re looking for a method of truth for the KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD. Your interpretation at any point will always stand amidst many of equal possibility and coherency.

 

*What I mean by ‘any’ and ‘anything’ in context here is anything that you can find to fit with sense data, which I figure is infinite. Now, I’m not necessarily saying every belief would fit with sense data (e.g. regarding knowledge of sense data itself: we sense what we call the color blue and believe it’s actually red).

 

B.2

     Perhaps there’s some confusion as to my contention against using sense data as a METHOD OF TRUTH for knowledge of the world. Sure we have sense data ‘staring us in the face’ but that in itself it’s not a method of truth we are interacting with. Empiricism is a particular doctrine of method, not sense data itself. Call experiencing sense data practical but the method of empiricism is something to be examined. I think it fails of course whether or not it’s the initial inclination among us.

     I’m not saying sense data doesn’t exist or doesn’t give basic information of some kind. Only that its interpretation in relation to the truth of the world is impossible by our own admission of possibilities.

     Oh and don’t assume in saying this I’m advocating skepticism. I haven’t said “empiricism is false therefore we can’t know anything”. I’ve only said the doctrine of empiricism can’t be a method by our own admission of possibilities. There are other methods of truth proposed.

 

p.s. I regret the use of ‘worldview’ arising in our discussion. “Worldview” amounts to “beliefs” anyway and I think just saying “beliefs” is less ambiguous.