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Comment by Sara Leon on June 2, 2011 at 10:02pm

And I'm not sure anyone claimed we were 'superior' lol. More 'rational', yes. Play fair.

Comment by Sara Leon on June 2, 2011 at 9:56pm

So John, are you truly asserting that all of our methods of quantifying the mechanics of our universe are baseless?

Comment by John Camilli on June 2, 2011 at 9:50pm

Oh, has it now? Are you quite sure of that, dear? Check out these recent articles:

1. Wave/ Particle Paradox Observed Directly

2. Either Hawking or Quantum Physics is Wrong.

3. Unification of Quantum Theory and Gravitation Thwarted Again!

 

I could post articles all day and all night about the many, many logical contradictions between various scientific theories. Each of the models will have stood up to rigorous testing and peer reviews on its own (the vaunted scientific method), but trying to combine them together in an all-encompassing theory of reality reveals many paradoxes within our "rational" explanations. Yet, we "superior" thinkers who shun religion and embrace science are content to point out all the flaws of religious stories while ignoring the many elephants standing in our own room, and on our toes.

 

You can't answer yes to those two questions while admitting that we have only scratched the surface of realities parameters. I'll use my hairy analogy again to explain. If I went and counted my hairs for a few hours yesterday, but did not, or could not, count them all, then it still wouldn't make sense to say that my figure of 200% has any meaning just because I had done some of the work. It would put a lower end on the possible meaning of the figure (ex. If i counted 100 hairs, I could know that the figure of 200% could not be less than 200 hairs), but it would not put an upper limit on it. Thus, there still exists no parameter, and no ability to quote a meaningful statistic.

 

 

Comment by Sara Leon on June 2, 2011 at 9:30pm

Oh science...oh statistics... right there...a little more... AAAAAHHHH. Sorry, just had a braingasm lmao. Now this is what I'm talking about, Mr. Camilli! Now to answer your question, yes and yes. However, I do acknowledge that we have barely scratched the surface of the parameters of possibility in our universe but the knowledge we do possess has stood up the the standard of the scientific method.

Comment by John Camilli on June 2, 2011 at 9:03pm

Joseph, yeah that sounds like something I would do too, lol.

Comment by John Camilli on June 2, 2011 at 9:01pm

Hmmm, that was a better definition that I expected. Hard to find holes in it, but I'll try. The crux here is whether or not a fact is better than a belief. The reason I said your definition was better than I expected is because most people that I have encountered want to claim a fact as knowledge; something indisputable, at which point I throw the dream argument at them. This argument essentially calls all empirical evidence into doubt under the premise that if it's possible to confuse a dream for reality, then it's possible to doubt that you are experiencing actual reality right now. However, your definition bypassed this argument by not claiming that a fact is indisputable. Nice. But I still have another argument to throw at it, and I'll do it in the form of a hypothetical.

 

Consider that you have 6 dice, and that you are rolling all the dice at once to see if you can get them to come up in numerical sequence (1,2,3,4,5,6). You try for some time, and at last you get a sequenced roll. Someone who has never rolled dice walks up just as you do this, and they draw the hasty conclusion that dice will always come up in sequence when they are rolled. Now compare this to human reality. We have only been organizing logic for a relatively short period of time. Is it possible that reality has presented us such a roll? You'd probably answer yes, but you might continue with the assertion that it is not "probable." To this I would argue the we are not probable. Indeed nothing that occurs is probable. Given the amount of time the universe seems to have been around, and the sheer number of particles interracting over all that time, it is incalculably improbable that any one thing happens at a given moment, and yet something must happen.

 

But here's the trick with probabilities. In order for them to mean anything, one must know the parameters of possibility before one can assert a probability within those parameters. For instance, if I say that I have 200% of the hair I had yesterday, what does that mean? Nothing, unless you know how much hair I had yesterday. If you don't have that information then 200% could literally mean any amount. My question to you is, do you think we have information about the paramaters of possibility within our universe, and if not, can it be meaningful to estimate that a given occurence is more probable than another? Only if both answers are 'yes' can it be meaningful to say that one idea is more probable/ more reasonable than another.

Comment by Yusuf Said on June 2, 2011 at 7:32pm

John lol you remind me of my friend who went with me to a religion vs science debate wearing the John 3:16 shirt just to mess with people.

Comment by Sara Leon on June 2, 2011 at 7:21pm

Oh John, you trouble maker lol. Well I define a fact as anything that can be scientifically quantified and proven to be true consistently after rigorous testing. Of course the integrity of the tests must be sound.

Comment by John Camilli on June 2, 2011 at 6:57pm

Oh, its no fun to have a blog where everyone agrees with everyone else. And since I don't mind other people's animosity, I'll go ahead and take the opposing side of the debate.

 

I'll start simple because this always boils down to a debate of semantics. What is a "fact" to you? Please explain it with a definition, not examples.

Comment by Steve on June 2, 2011 at 5:43pm

Perhaps one day we will be lucky enough to see a large group of creationist go to the Grand Canyon and decide that gravity being just a theory it should be disregarded also.

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