I didn’t miss it, it just didn’t answer my question definitively, and since a claim was made, and I’ve asked several times what is a very simple question, I’d appreciate an honest answer before I move on.
It’s also crazy in work, and my time is very limited.
To be clear that was your claim, and I then asked more than once, did / do you consider your original assertion “something that has not been proved imposdible, is possible” to be true?
As yet you have not answered this unequivocally.
I know, hence my question.
I’ll try lager letters then:
Not sure why this question is proving so difficult, though I am starting to have my suspicions.
Not the context of the claim, as it was referring to an unfalsifiable assertion.
No, possibility, has to be demonstrated as does its negation. If we don’t or can’t know, then we have no rational or epistemological justification for claiming either is TRUE.
.
All it takes is sufficient objective evidence, and sound argument.
Probably because they’re not mine, but are based on common usage found in a dictionary. Im usually pretty careful to check, even when I think I know what a word means. It’s time well spent.
Well I find that term much maligned in debates tbh, like the words logic and rational, they’re all used as rhetoric as if their inclusion makes the accompanying argument so. Like people who tack the word fact onto claims, when their claim is neither known or proven to be true.
Again, not my perspective, it’s the OED’s, though I’m happy to listen to arguments they’re wrong about common usage.
Mermaids then, unless you’ve searched the entirety of reality, they must by your and his rationale be possible, and unicorns of course, and a godless universe, in fact any bs claim any lunatic cares to make up.
Yes, it’s a sound rationale, what was I thinking.
Really, I thought any argument ends when it is either unsupported by anything approaching objective evidence, and or is demonstrably fallacious.
Actually this started when I asserted that I was unaware of any objective evidence that any deity or deities exist or are even possible.
It may be a derailment here, but there is a semantical analogue of the Liar’s paradox where – somewhat simplified, skipping steps and caveats – the sentence is true, while at the same time it can be proven that it can not be proven or disproven. I am of course talking about Gödels first incompleteness theorem, where “false” is replaced by “not provable”, so the new sentence is “This sentence is not provable”. This sentence is indirectly self-referential, and if you try to prove it, you will go in a loop and end up with the same sentence. The sentence is true, but you cannot prove it is true within the system of logic it is asserted. To do that, you need to use a different axiomatic system.
My agnosticism compels to admit I don’t know if a deity is possible, so I can’t admit it is, obviously.
I “admit the possibility”, I don’t admit TO the possibility. I assign virtually no probabiity to that possibility. I concede the point because I’m not interested in arguing it and the problems with their epistemology and doctrines that are so contradictory that it has split Christianity into (charitably) dozens of incompatible sects, are by themselves indefensible.
A lot of this depends on the definition of god someone is arguing for. I personally don’t think the Christian theodicy is possible due to the logical inconsistencies of the “tri-omni” characteristics and the problem of suffering, but a Deist “sortagod” might be, in principle. Just very unlikely. The latter provides an agency to start everything off but lets it be entirely AWOL and disinterested afterwards, which is at least consistent with observed reality, which shows no evidence of divine intervention – and Deism is constructed pretty much to explain that very thing. Try to add any specificity to that – give the deity a personality, a name, a backstory of any kind, and it just doesn’t hold up at all.
Nobody is claiming truth value at this point. Let me ask you this. Is it possible there is life elsewhere in the universe? Do I have to demonstrate there is life elsewhere in the universe in order for it to be possible? Or is it simple possible in principle?
Good question. My own answer is that we know enough about how life as we know it works, enough about the composition of other stars and extrasolar planets to know the raw materials of life are plentiful enough, that life is possible, that in fact given the vastness of the universe, it seems more possible than that life is unique to our planet. Although the conditions to kick start life may be so freakish that it is in fact unique to our planet, especially the evolution of higher species.
The problem with gods is even worse, though; they don’t follow or depend on the physical universe so we inherently know zero about them. All sorts of claims are made, none of which are falsifiable. So we can’t even begin to reason about possibilities, much less probabilities. We are left with sorting through bare claims and campfire stories.
Still … for some given value of possible, I guess anything is technically possible, but that by itself says nothing about how likely that possibility is, or whether the possibility should ever be seriously entertained.
I agree. And fireflies has already stated that he isn’t arguing that the possibility of us living in a matrix is likely, just possible - as with almost everything. It’s a very minor point he’s making.
Every claim and argument has a truth value attached.
We slready know life is possible in this universe, look around you.
Are you missing the point deliberately?
And we know this how exactly?
you already got one. I even clarified it:
and again:
and again
to be clear, my assertion that something is possible until proved impossible is not a truth value claim as to the thing being considered possible. I am calling something possible, not true.
I don’t know how many more times I can repeat it.
Incorrect. You have ignored the source I linked in my earlier comment that distinguishes epistemic possibility, objective possibility and nomological possibility. Nomological possibility requires objective justification for claiming it is possible, but epistemic possibility does not.
And what does the OED say about possibility/possible to force anything beyond epistemic knowledge being required?
Yes, they are possible - we don’t know if on another planet somewhere in the universe, life has evolved to allow for a part humanoid, part fish being to exist, or for a horse-like creature with a single horn on its head to exist.
And as per my previous comments - saying something is possible doesn’t count for anything beyond it not being known to be impossible.
Certainly not irrational.
Actually actually, this started when I asserted that the idea of a matrix style world was a stretch but it was a valid idea. My subsequent comments have referenced this numerous times after.
I have not disputed any point about objective evidence for a deity or deities.
You’re misinterpreting what has been said.
A claim is a claim that something is fact/true by virtue of it being a claim. That doesn’t need to be stated beyond that (but I have already clarified in my earlier comment that the claim in and of itself is epistemically true)
But the claim about something being possible is not a claim that the same something is true, only that it does not contravene known logical and/or physical constraints.
They didn’t ask if life was possible in this universe, they asked if life was possible elsewhere in this universe.
Based on epistemic knowledge (of logical and physical constaints) one can acknowledge epistemic possibility or impossibility based on their own knowledge, and also make an epistemic claim of objective possibility.
It is only nomological possibility that requires evidence that an idea is actually possible in relation to the corpus of knowledge to a reasonably justified degree.
A matrix style reality can’t be said to be nomologically possible as we don’t know if such a system is capable of fitting within the laws of physics, and a claim otherwise would be an argumentum ad ignorantiam specifically on nomological possibility. However for epistemic and objective possibilities, it would not be.
Well you actually said it was possible until proved impossible, and I asked if you believed that assertion to be true?
Nor me, but maybe I’ll get a straight answer at some point.
Well that’s a belief you are asserting, and I don’t agree obviously, as to argue it’s true something is possible, because it hasn’t been proved impossible, is an argumentum as ignorantiam fallacy.
Which part of this did you miss?
You already got one, as per the above, multiple times.
You mentioned that you like OED definitions. Which definitions for epistemology and related words are you relying on when you make this claim?
What is your response to the link I provided that clarified the differences between epistemic possibility, objective possibility and nomological possibility?
You keep ignoring this very crucial progression in the discussion. Which is rather convenient for your argument if you ignore the rebuttal and keep asking for statements I’ve already made and keep making the same fallacy claims I’ve already answered with compelling supporting evidence demonstrating the fallacy is incorrect.
Not the full quote, I shall let that sophistry slide, as it is now clear that when you asserted “something that has not been proved impossible, must be possible” you were claiming this was true (quelle surprise) ipso facto it is an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy.
“The argument from ignorance fallacy (or appeal to ignorance) is a logical error where someone claims a proposition is true simply because there’s no evidence to prove it’s false.”
Which was exactly what you did, claiming it was true that something was possible, because it couldn’t be proved impossible.
You talk about sophistry, yet you have once again ignored the link I provided that explained the difference between epistemic possibility, objective possibility, and nomological possibility.
If you’re going to deliberately ignore my argument in order to advance your own, that’s the very definition of a strawman.
When you yet again claim argumentum ad ignorantiam, you’re also making a proof by assertion fallacy - your claim has been answered and proved false, yet you ignore the link I posted that addressed that, which contradicts your position.
The question at hand here is that X can not be proven impossible, therefore it must be possible. Given that we are talking about things that happen in Nature, or more generally, the universe, X can in general be arbitrarily complex, and you cannot resolve X and all its logical and practical consequences by reducing X to just a label. Thus, we must regard X as such, namely something that cannot be trivially explained, but requires a quite complex linguistic and logical apparatus to resolve, as well as deep insight into the physical properties of X. Enter Gödel’s first incompleteness theorem;
Any consistent formal system F within which a certain amount of elementary arithmetic can be carried out is incomplete; i.e. there are statements of the language of F which can neither be proved nor disproved in F.
It is well known that “ordinary” language and logic that we use is sufficiently complex for the theorem to be applied, as Gödel himself proved the nonprovability of a sentence such as “This sentence can not be proved”. Granted, the sentence is quite clearly indirectly self-referential, but that does not rule out that statements about X are or must be self-referential in some way. In any case, whether or not X directly or indirecly imply self-reference does not matter, as the theorem will still apply. Thus, the sentence “It is impossible that X can exist” might not be possible to prove at all. However, under the incompleteness theorem, that does not rule out its validity. Thus, it does not follow that even if you cannot prove “it is impossible that X can exist” to be true, it does not mean it isn’t true. Thus, you can therefore not logically conclude that it is possible that X exists. All you are left with is an indeterminate answer.
In any case, the whole binary impossible vs possible concept seems of vanishingly little value to me, and does not really tell us much about Nature or Cosmos. Or about anything, really. Even if we manage to calculate the probability for something to be possible/to happen/to be true to P(something extremely unlikely) < 1/K, where K is some ridiculously large number, such as Graham’s number g64 or TREE(3) or g64TREE(3), or Γ(g64TREE(3)), P would still not be zero, and thus “possible”. What will be of value is that instead of the strictly binary choice, is that we attach probabilities to it, as has been argued before. The range could e.g. go from P(proven impossible) = 0 to P(proven to exist/happen/whatever) = 1. Even if you just restrict yourself to a limited discrete choice of P values, such as P ∈ {0, 0.000001, 0.001, 0.1, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 0.9, 0.99, 0.99999, 1}, it would be immensely more useful.