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

[appolose]

Final-Fan said:

@ postscript:  well, "belief set", anyway. 

A.  Fair enough, although 3, 4, and Matrix are not compatible with the posited belief set, and 2 was not intentionally within it although it could have been interpreted that way easily enough.  (And he did in hypothetical fact change his belief of what the Moon IS made of, whatever he thinks of what it WAS made of. )

I agreed, way back, that "senses can't ABSOLUTELY PROVE that a worldview is the true really for real truth", and it now looks like you've agreed that a belief set can be contradicted by sense data.  So I think it was all a misunderstanding that you thought I was saying belief sets could somehow yield absolute truth beyond themselves, right? 

B.  You know I'm not saying practicality is a method or reflection of absolute truth, right?  Just that acting on sense data as perceived is the only practical path since you can't actually do anything else.

I'd ask what else is proposed, but I'm scared

A. I think your missing my point. If it is true that at every point you can choose from a number of possible beliefs on sense data and that they are all equally possible - then whatever scenario you're developing here is irrelevant to the problem.

I see you creating a set of beliefs to forcefully contradict itself at another point and I don't know why, since you don't have to contradict yourself. You've got an infinite number possibilities to choose from at any point, and whether you pick coherent ones or contradictory ones the problem still remains that each one involved had no reason for being picked.

That's why the doctrine of empiricism isn't a working method of truth. It doesn't point to any one interpretation of sense data. It is offers them all and leaves you in recognition that by picking any one you're being arbitrary and so, therefore, not engaging in a method of truth.

In case there is still further confusion on something I suspect: You can't presuppose sense data is only evidence of one thing. Why? Because just by merely examining possibilities we see that it is evidence of many things. So if you were trying to tell me that you could simply presuppose that a certain blob of sense data only represented cheese... that goes in the face of this unavoidable admission that it simply doesn't.

B. I see "acting on sense data as perceived" as inseparable from the implication that you know something or know something to interact with in a certain way. That's some truth. And again, there's no way to establish these, now termed, 'perceptions' and there corresponding 'actions'.