I didn't mean to offend. Sorry
I wasn't offended.
I guess it would be better for you to say what does convince you that something is real? Otherwise I'm kind of putting my beliefs out as a standard that you may not accept. Let me play on your field.
Well it's not beliefs that I'm challenging here, actually. I'm questioning epistemologies. Quite different. That is to say, I'm asking what methodological tools one uses to establish any truth claims (natural, supernatural, etc.) while recognizing that our senses and brains are prone to err. I already gave a list of things that I consider are work-arounds to such cognitive limitations.
The physical sciences rely more upon our senses than religion does, so, if our senses are as unreliable as you say they are, the sciences are in big trouble, aren't they?
No, not really because that's what we have to experience the outside world. You missed an important point in my original thread. I said that our
raw senses are highly prone to error but that we can devise and cultivate work-arounds that include things like
falsifiability, skepticism, open debate, formal precision, empirical tests, etc.
Alright.
OPTION 1: Scientist A makes claims about global warming, either confirming it or disconfirming it.
OPTION 2: Scientist B provides verifiable, empirical facts that either confirms or disconfirms global warming.
This hypothetical isn't about whether global warming is true or false, which is why I left the question open. Rather, the point of this hypothetical is to induce a question in your head that asks, "Which is likely to convince me more?" There is nothing about OPTION 1 that rivals or trumps OPTION 2. Why? Because relying on OPTION 1 places blind trust in mere assertions. It could be, after all, that the scientist is mistaken in his or her evaluation of the facts, after all. Or it could be that the scientist knows better but distorts the facts. OPTION 2, on the other hand, allows you to independently verify said assertions and make conclusions for yourself. Moreover, the academic process of peer review allows for a community to come together and challenge each other, enhancing the chances of getting the right answer and approximating the truth the most by increasing accountability as well as revision.
At some point, skepticism must by necessity become nihilistic or insane.
How do you figure that?
There are so many properly basic beliefs people take for granted every day.
Well of course you have to make certain assumptions. That's rather inevitable. The point, though, is to make as little assumptions as one possibly can. This is the value of
Occam's razor after all.
I'm curious, though. Do you disagree with me that there are better epistemologies than others -- better with respect to reliability of ascertaining reality?
According to you, eyewitness testimony is unreliable anyways.
Well, I'm merely delivering the message. This isn't merely according to me. This has been well documented.
60 Minutes did a good piece on this:
Eyewitness, Part 1 - 60 Minutes Videos - CBS News
There's also last years comprehensive paper that came out titled "
25 Years of Eyewitness Science
Finally Pays Off." In the early 1970s, research examining eyewitness testimony was in its infancy; however, by the late 1980s this area of research was the topic of scores of studies. Despite the important nature of this work, researchers were often not welcome in the courtroom and were therefore unable to influence the way eyewitness procedures were carried out or interpreted. It was not until the mid 1990s, when scores of convictions began being overturned by DNA evidence, that people started to truly appreciate how problematic eyewitness identification can be. Today, research on eyewitness testimony is used by law enforcement agencies and welcomed into the courtroom, presenting a true success story for those who study this topic.
Some people in Jesus day saw his miracles, and yet still did not find saving faith. So seeing a miracle in itself will not lead to the kind of belief that Christians consider important. If a person's heart is hard, they will not find faith in Christ.
Is your heart hardened when you reject miracles outside Christianity? What if I were to show you south Indian gurus performing miracles? Should your skepticism be construed as closemindedness and hard-heartedness or prudence? I would classify it in the latter camp.
How do you propose to divorce empiricism from use of the senses - sight especially?
You don't. What you do is you create an epistemology that reduces the errors and limitations prone to the senses.
For instance, if you use a powerful telescope you will notice that objects in space appear as though they're moving away from us. Indeed they are, but the perception that we are at the center and everything else is moving away is mistaken. We first observe objects are moving away by the use of
standard candles. You investigate whether an object is moving away or toward you by observing either
redshifting or
blueshifting, similar to the Doppler Effect only ocular rather than auditory. The impression, however, that we are at the center and everything is moving away is a myopic error easily seen when we do simple tests.
Observe the dots below. Let the green dots in box A represent our current state (a dot being a planet). Box B represents all objects having shifted in equidistance from each other -- neither being at the center. When you superimpose B onto A you realize that no matter where you place a pink dot directly on top of a green one, it will create the illusion that such overlapped dots (where the X is in the picture) is the center and everything else moves away.
_____
I feel I should make a comment about how science works. Science relies on inductive reasoning, not deductive logic. One does not arrive at a necessary conclusion but rather an inference to the best explanation. This is a rough description to be sure, but it is an important fact to recognize. This limitation is inevitable because we do not possess perfect information nor an ability to account for all errors. Rather, the endeavor of the scientific method is to
reduce errors. Other epistemologies don't really account for this; indeed, they often exacerbate the problem, replying heavily on hearsay testimony, ocular evidence alone without any work-around epistemic tools and drawing hasty and detailed conclusions from mere visceral experiences and emotional responses.
