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

[Final-Fan]

appolose said:

Final-Fan said:

appolose said:

Final-Fan said:
A.  Except, in the case of the belief sets that include that belief ... then it does.  This was all, entirely, SOLELY about my assertion that the "any" in "any belief set is supported by sense data" is not correct.  Only infinite numbers are. 

B.  Think about it.  The only actions you can reliably* take are the ones you perceive the results of, yes?  So empiricism is the only belief that lets you realistically* do anything.  Thus the only "practical" one, thus the most "practical" one. 

*I do not by these words imply that you actually KNOW "really for real" that you are in ACTUAL FACT doing these actions.  I mean rather that your ONLY MEANS OF INPUT replies to your output in a fairly internally consistent way.  (BTW, this includes dreams to the extent that the inputted world explains the discrepancy.)  And that "doing" anything requires an input/output system.  And that "practicality" by definition refers to "doing" things. 

Do you now see my justification for saying something is practical even if we don't know that it is true?

A.  You can't actually do that.  Sense data represents anything, so you can't say it only represents one thing; that would be wrong.  What you can do is to say that you assume there is cheese, and realize that the sense data still represents anything and is evidence for anything.  It's not a contradiction to assume cheese and know the sense data can represent cheese and anything else.

B.  I thought we had already discussed this consistency issue in that anything is consistent and consistency lends nothing to the credibility of a method of truth.

A.  A belief set most certainly can specify one interpretation of sense data.  I don't think you understand what I'm saying. 

B.  I thought we had already discussed that practicality is not a measurement of absolute truth.

A. Unless your advocating that you merely presuppose something about sense data (this is cheese) then you're saying what I think you are: This group of sense data can only indicate cheese to me. And it doesn't. That would be somewhat similar to believing a bachelor is a married man - In that you just can't. And saying it over and over doesn't make it possible.

In the event you are merely presupposing that you know there is cheese about this meaningless group of sense data... we're no longer talking about empiricism... we're talking about the method of presuppositionalism. That's the problem.

B. I don't think you're understanding that whenever you describe 'practicality' to me it's subliminally implying some sort of knowledge. I really don't take to this dinstinction between 'absolute truth' and just 'sort kinda truth but really isn't'. If your having a 'perception' and you expect 'it' to interact with you in a certain way... that would be something you think you know. It's inescapable. If you don't expect a perception to interact with you a certain way or whatever input/output system you set up, the meaning of practicality, whatever you're making of it, seems illusory to me.

A.  "I believe that cheese looks and smells and feels like so.  I further believe that what looks and smells and feels like so is cheese."  These are beliefs.  You appear now to be denying the existence of absolute BELIEF, which is completely different from doubting absolute KNOWLEDGE.  Worse, you just said that having such a belief is a self-contradicting definition, which is not only wrong but nonsensical.  Besides, how do you know how I define the word "bachelor"? 

Belief sets exist that can be contradicted by sense data
"butbutbut you can just believe something else"
Belief sets exist that can be contradicted by sense data
"butbutbut that sense data could actually mean anything if you interpret it differently"
Belief sets exist that can be contradicted by sense data
"butbutbut any specific interpretation is just an assumption"
Belief sets exist that can be contradicted by sense data

To put it more politely, I'm not ADVOCATING that, I'm just saying that it's POSSIBLE to do so, which satisfies my goal of disproving your "ANY" statement. 

B.  But this isn't ABSOLUTE knowledge, it's knowledge within the sense data (input) of its own internal consistency with your output.  Do you deny that when you output what you perceive as "pressing Y on the keyboard" a Y appears on the screen?  Do you not expect that if you should output "pull the trigger of a loaded gun that is pointed at your body" you are going to receive input "PAIN"?  Life may be an illusion, but it is a VERY complete one, which is getting dangerously near to my point.