Is Science the Only Means of Knowing?
- Thread starter Resha Caner
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MrsFoundit
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Your ability to assess evidence remains insufficient to convince me of its existence.
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MrsFoundit
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No, I am pointing out that I do not agree with some of your posts. Your apparent inability to see semantic differences, as opposed to substantial ones, explaining your strange conclusion a that an actual point has been proven wrong, to be specific.
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MrsFoundit
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For me it is not that science is an invalid way to know, it is a question of what it enables us to know.
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muichimotsu
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The two common distinctions we have are empirical and rational as to acquisition of knowledge and empirical has variations within it much more than rational, though the latter can factor into empirical observations in interpretation.
But for things that aren't something we can observe in the sense that most of the sciences would approach, we discern them by thinking in the abstract, like logical principles, rather than strictly observing them in themselves, since they're arguably axiomatic in application: we don't observe 1 as a quantity of a single thing, we have that as a priori understanding in regards to numbers, the same as the logical idea that something cannot be both itself and its contrary.
With many things, the observation and correlation of some pattern to the events we observe is how we gain a general sense of knowledge about them, sometimes more directly, sometimes in a sense of understanding it through historical sources, etc. Trial and error is effective to a degree, though with more complex things, testing out a logistical solution is such that we'd require mathematical testing of sorts for the efficiency of making a change that's larger in nature.
Intuition isn't necessarily a path to knowledge, but a way to consider novel ideas and then test them out by proper methodology, I'd say.
But for things that aren't something we can observe in the sense that most of the sciences would approach, we discern them by thinking in the abstract, like logical principles, rather than strictly observing them in themselves, since they're arguably axiomatic in application: we don't observe 1 as a quantity of a single thing, we have that as a priori understanding in regards to numbers, the same as the logical idea that something cannot be both itself and its contrary.
With many things, the observation and correlation of some pattern to the events we observe is how we gain a general sense of knowledge about them, sometimes more directly, sometimes in a sense of understanding it through historical sources, etc. Trial and error is effective to a degree, though with more complex things, testing out a logistical solution is such that we'd require mathematical testing of sorts for the efficiency of making a change that's larger in nature.
Intuition isn't necessarily a path to knowledge, but a way to consider novel ideas and then test them out by proper methodology, I'd say.
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Well there is certainly no evidence of your ability to read my mind.
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muichimotsu
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To answer the original question in a different manner: science is not the only means of knowing, but it's arguably the best way to have reliable knowledge when the principles underlying it are applied, both to abstract and concrete things, especially for the latter, since concrete things, while transient to a degree, have consistency we can observe and apply a structural model to much easier by comparison to abstract concepts (though there are exceptions, like numbers as an accurate description for quantity and mathematical formulae, both of which fall under science in the formal sense)
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muichimotsu
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I can be articulate online so much moreso than in real life, sadly. Or I stumble over what I might've had a cogent thought in my head putting it into words
And to be clear, I don't have much of a science background proper, I studied humanities far more
And to be clear, I don't have much of a science background proper, I studied humanities far more
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muichimotsu
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A counter question could be, how is someone to claim they know something of a spiritual/religious/supernatural quality rather than merely asserting they believe it and acknowledge that anything further is epistemologically unsound?
Notions like a God existing, that said God reveals its will in some sense through a book like the bible, that there is an afterlife where people are rewarded or punished, and that getting to the best state in the afterlife of reward is contingent on belief in a particular revelation in the first place. How can anyone say these are things you know if we understand knowledge as both justified and true, neither of which can really be applied to something that one is required to have FAITH in to begin with rather than it being something we can verify in a consistent manner that isn't subject to post hoc explanations to suss out differences in results?
Notions like a God existing, that said God reveals its will in some sense through a book like the bible, that there is an afterlife where people are rewarded or punished, and that getting to the best state in the afterlife of reward is contingent on belief in a particular revelation in the first place. How can anyone say these are things you know if we understand knowledge as both justified and true, neither of which can really be applied to something that one is required to have FAITH in to begin with rather than it being something we can verify in a consistent manner that isn't subject to post hoc explanations to suss out differences in results?
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