The fight over Darwin - Teaching evolution in schools

[appolose]

Khuutra said:

appolose said:

Khuutra said:

The idea goes that if we're in the Matrix, we have to assume the Matrix is reality until we are given reason to beelieve otherwise. That's the compromise we make with our senses. If we reject what we sense then we reject all reality, and that is an absurd notion if only bcause reality behaves in such a consistent way. If you don't do a certain st of things, you are going to die. That's real enough for most people.

If you are sure of your own thoughts, you must be sure of an apparatus of your thoughts, must you not? If you think, you musth ave a mind, and from there your mind must be housed in a place.

Reailty cannot be derived form sense data.  I never said we reject what we sense, I said we cannot derive what (if anything) our sense data represents.

An apparatus of thought would have to be assumed.  I can't prove how my thought works in any way.

Reality can be derived from sense data, and the majority of people agree on this point because it is all we have. not to say that our senses are not limited, but they are there, and everyone generally seems to interpret the same things in roughly the same way.

So.... you're not sure... that you have a mind.

Tell me something, then.

If you can't be sure of the sense data being fed to you, why are you participating in this conversation?

Using the majority's response on this issue is worthless; I have to assume they exist, too.  Reality cannot be derived from sense data, for sense data can fit anything.  Even if it was provable that other people existed, of what use would that be?  We all could still be wrong.

I never said I wasn't sure (I think I didn't, at least), I said it can't be proven.

I am perfectly sure of this conversation, though.  I'm referring back to epistemological knowledge in my debate with Finalfan.