Jud replying to Tudor recently:
> NOBODY can disprove the non-existence of GOD or anything else to anybody —
> because neither "existence" or "non-existence exist.
> They could demand that God be produced immediately as evidence for the
> claim. If no such evidence were forthcoming
> then the claim would be false. {as it is with the "Being" fantasy]
Jud, a minor point but worth making since you claim such a proximity to the
(positivistic) science you (implicitly) quote so freely in your declamations
of what and what does not exist (in your terms) -- a Popper quickie -- not
finding evidence for some hypothesis (say, God exists) does *not* disprove
the hypothesis, anymore than finding (some) evidence (now and perhaps then)
proves it.
Some statements concerning Popper's notion of falsifiability:
"Falsificationism is the idea that science advances by unjustified,
exaggerated guesses followed by unstinting criticism. Only hypotheses
capable of clashing with observation reports are allowed to count as
scientific. "Gold is soluble in hydrochloric acid" is scientific (though
false); "Some homeopathic medicine does work" is, taken on its own,
unscientific (though possibly true). The first is scientific because we can
eliminate it if it is false; the second is unscientific because even if it
were false we could not get rid of it by confronting it with an observation
report that contradicted it. Unfalsifiable theories are like the computer
programs with no uninstall option that just clog up the computer's precious
storage space. Falsifiable theories, on the other hand, enhance our control
over error while expanding the richness of what we can say about the world."
"It is easy, he argues, to obtain evidence in favour of virtually any
theory, and he consequently holds that such �corroboration�, as he terms it,
should count scientifically only if it is the positive result of a genuinely
�risky� prediction, which might conceivably have been false. For Popper, a
theory is scientific only if it is refutable by a conceivable event. Every
genuine test of a scientific theory, then, is logically an attempt to refute
or to falsify it, and one genuine counter-instance falsifies the whole
theory. In a critical sense, Popper's theory of demarcation is based upon
his perception of the logical asymmetry which holds between verification and
falsification: it is logically impossible to conclusively verify a universal
proposition by reference to experience (as Hume saw clearly), but a single
counter-instance conclusively falsifies the corresponding universal law. In
a word, an exception, far from �proving� a rule, conclusively refutes it."
As for the claim you make that evidence for the existence of being is not
forthcoming: it is possible that this has been said in myriad ways hundreds
of times since your advent on this list -- being is not a being and thus (in
your terms as well as Heidegger's {although not the same as each other})
does not "exist"; if you like, being is not in that beings may be. With
being itself, we are not within the empire of empirical things, rather in
the realm of empiricity (that beings show themselves in various ways and
these ways are not themselves further beings; e.g., empirical things show
themselves to human, animal and plant sense organs but this empiricity
{accessibility through the sense organs} of things such as these is not
itself another empirical thing). So, once and for all (...chance would be
a...), *being is not a being* (existence does not exist, if you prefer). But
that does not mean it [is] nothing just because it is no thing [note: the
space is everything here]. Being [is] the being of a being but not a being
itself.
One more thing: you, as nominalist, continually speak in terms of this or
that existing or not existing (as you say above concerning "existence" and
"non-existence") -- in fact, it seems that such speech rarely strays from
such listing of what does and what does not exist, but I digress -- thus
making some kind of difference within speech: that speaking of what exists
is 'good' speech whereas speaking of what does not exist (whether assumed as
existing or not) constitutes 'not good' speech (ie, it is better to speak of
what exists rather than what does not exist -- notice once more, I am not
here contesting the definition of existence you claim {approx. that which is
material or energetic in nature} ). Thus it would seem to be advisable (in
the name of good speech) to not speak of that which does not exist, even to
make the disclaimer that such indeed does not exist (is not worthy of being
spoken about); and yet you appear (as nominalist) to be unable to not speak
badly in this sense (whilst claiming all along that you cannot avoid such
speech {excuses of "convenience", "usefulness", etc} but that others
{phenomenologists, Heideggerians, "transcendentalists", religionists, etc;
more or less everyone else} also speak of what does not exist but somehow
they are not immune (like yourself) from the judgement of bad speech (you
are continually making such judgements). To speak of what does not exist --
even in the assertion that something does not exist -- seems to have a
different value when nominalists perform this perfidy than when
non-nominalists perform it. How is this disjunction justified *within
nominalistic discourse* (ie, sticking to nominalist principles purely)?
I respectfully suggest that if you dare subject your nominalistic speech to
nominalist principles you might find some difficulties, even
nominalistically insurmoutable ones (after all, that's what philosophical
critique is really about, not just declammatory assertions of opinion, dogma
or belief: we hear all that from the tabloids and the box every day).
Hoping you find some courage and not just another excuse for getting out
your hammer.
regards
mP
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> NOBODY can disprove the non-existence of GOD or anything else to anybody —
> because neither "existence" or "non-existence exist.
> They could demand that God be produced immediately as evidence for the
> claim. If no such evidence were forthcoming
> then the claim would be false. {as it is with the "Being" fantasy]
Jud, a minor point but worth making since you claim such a proximity to the
(positivistic) science you (implicitly) quote so freely in your declamations
of what and what does not exist (in your terms) -- a Popper quickie -- not
finding evidence for some hypothesis (say, God exists) does *not* disprove
the hypothesis, anymore than finding (some) evidence (now and perhaps then)
proves it.
Some statements concerning Popper's notion of falsifiability:
"Falsificationism is the idea that science advances by unjustified,
exaggerated guesses followed by unstinting criticism. Only hypotheses
capable of clashing with observation reports are allowed to count as
scientific. "Gold is soluble in hydrochloric acid" is scientific (though
false); "Some homeopathic medicine does work" is, taken on its own,
unscientific (though possibly true). The first is scientific because we can
eliminate it if it is false; the second is unscientific because even if it
were false we could not get rid of it by confronting it with an observation
report that contradicted it. Unfalsifiable theories are like the computer
programs with no uninstall option that just clog up the computer's precious
storage space. Falsifiable theories, on the other hand, enhance our control
over error while expanding the richness of what we can say about the world."
"It is easy, he argues, to obtain evidence in favour of virtually any
theory, and he consequently holds that such �corroboration�, as he terms it,
should count scientifically only if it is the positive result of a genuinely
�risky� prediction, which might conceivably have been false. For Popper, a
theory is scientific only if it is refutable by a conceivable event. Every
genuine test of a scientific theory, then, is logically an attempt to refute
or to falsify it, and one genuine counter-instance falsifies the whole
theory. In a critical sense, Popper's theory of demarcation is based upon
his perception of the logical asymmetry which holds between verification and
falsification: it is logically impossible to conclusively verify a universal
proposition by reference to experience (as Hume saw clearly), but a single
counter-instance conclusively falsifies the corresponding universal law. In
a word, an exception, far from �proving� a rule, conclusively refutes it."
As for the claim you make that evidence for the existence of being is not
forthcoming: it is possible that this has been said in myriad ways hundreds
of times since your advent on this list -- being is not a being and thus (in
your terms as well as Heidegger's {although not the same as each other})
does not "exist"; if you like, being is not in that beings may be. With
being itself, we are not within the empire of empirical things, rather in
the realm of empiricity (that beings show themselves in various ways and
these ways are not themselves further beings; e.g., empirical things show
themselves to human, animal and plant sense organs but this empiricity
{accessibility through the sense organs} of things such as these is not
itself another empirical thing). So, once and for all (...chance would be
a...), *being is not a being* (existence does not exist, if you prefer). But
that does not mean it [is] nothing just because it is no thing [note: the
space is everything here]. Being [is] the being of a being but not a being
itself.
One more thing: you, as nominalist, continually speak in terms of this or
that existing or not existing (as you say above concerning "existence" and
"non-existence") -- in fact, it seems that such speech rarely strays from
such listing of what does and what does not exist, but I digress -- thus
making some kind of difference within speech: that speaking of what exists
is 'good' speech whereas speaking of what does not exist (whether assumed as
existing or not) constitutes 'not good' speech (ie, it is better to speak of
what exists rather than what does not exist -- notice once more, I am not
here contesting the definition of existence you claim {approx. that which is
material or energetic in nature} ). Thus it would seem to be advisable (in
the name of good speech) to not speak of that which does not exist, even to
make the disclaimer that such indeed does not exist (is not worthy of being
spoken about); and yet you appear (as nominalist) to be unable to not speak
badly in this sense (whilst claiming all along that you cannot avoid such
speech {excuses of "convenience", "usefulness", etc} but that others
{phenomenologists, Heideggerians, "transcendentalists", religionists, etc;
more or less everyone else} also speak of what does not exist but somehow
they are not immune (like yourself) from the judgement of bad speech (you
are continually making such judgements). To speak of what does not exist --
even in the assertion that something does not exist -- seems to have a
different value when nominalists perform this perfidy than when
non-nominalists perform it. How is this disjunction justified *within
nominalistic discourse* (ie, sticking to nominalist principles purely)?
I respectfully suggest that if you dare subject your nominalistic speech to
nominalist principles you might find some difficulties, even
nominalistically insurmoutable ones (after all, that's what philosophical
critique is really about, not just declammatory assertions of opinion, dogma
or belief: we hear all that from the tabloids and the box every day).
Hoping you find some courage and not just another excuse for getting out
your hammer.
regards
mP
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