Atheists and their jargon of insults

[cladking]

I would ask, though, what is the appropriate way to challenge a myth that is presented as fact?

In my opinion it's not the myth you should challenge. It's the premises.

Just as I avoid challenging the myth that science knows everything, runs of genius, and has discovered laws of nature and talk about the premises and the bad interpretations of evidence and experiment that has led to these myths. Of course I can't make much headway because believers in science are the holiest of all thous and refuse to even acknowledge premises unless they can be found on wiki.

I believe everyone's premises should be challenged but the best arguments to support religious premises are dismissed and the presenter insulted. Many of the religious arguers are well aware of their premises and often they make perfect sense but this isn't seen by those who know there is no God and know that science is omniscient. Believers in science aren't even aware they have premises. They think they wake of every morning and invent science anew from thin air. Most can't correctly apply even the most basic equations to reality. 50% of aviation engineers think a plane can't take off from a conveyor belt. The application of scientific knowledge to calculations, hypothesis formation,. and experiment design is typically quite difficult. It is far more difficult for those who believe in science.

We all boil reality down into a handful of models and then think we have all the answers while no one has even come up with a working definition for consciousness. A sparrow better understands the formatting of reality than even our best scientists.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

How much does that pay?

I write poetry. I don't know that it is any good, insightful or offers some new look on the world around us. I don't get paid for it and it isn't published, but I am a poet. That is all that means. I suspect that is all that being a metaphysician means here too. Though, I think it is offered as a testimonial to something more.

The first accurate thing you’ve said.

I think the evidence of that speaks for itself. I don't say that as an insult, but rather as a statement supported by evidence to help further that missing understanding.

But how would you know since you admitted you don’t know how science works?

That's a very good question. How would someone that claims not to understand science have the basis to make such a statement? It seems like a circular, self-defeating declaration following the prior claim.

You succeed at confusing yourself.

I think that is good to recognize our limitations. The paradox of not knowing science coupled with seemingly knowing declarations about science and scientists may be one means to voice a limitation. I'm not sure. It is puzzling and difficult to reconcile.

He’s not here to help you out.

I find the impromptu reference seems to be some sort of cryptic admonition, perhaps insult, to those people that do not swallow empty claims whole.

 

[cladking]

I sense that you did not think before posting that wholly irrational statement.

You can not understand the explanation.

Science is the definitions, axioms, and all experimental results including the nature of consciousness and language as they apply to the antecedents and to the observers. This is modern metaphysics.

This is because experiment has no meaning without the observer and the interpretation of the observer.

Peers, evidence, and opinion have no bearing on science except to the degree individuals allow it to have an effect. Each individual must build models to hold and/ or process the so much information and because we use a language which necessitates the existence of beliefs to comprehend.

Other consciousness formats reality in terms of its own brain and sees reality directly. its metaphysics is observation and the logic of the wiring of its brain.

Nobody is aware of and can properly interpret every experiment therefore is incapable of truly understanding science. This applies more to ,me especially since I've not kept up with experiments in the last 50 years. -only those that interest me or that I deem important.

 

[cladking]

Really? It's not that complicated. Essentially science is the objective methodological investigation into the natural and physical universe, from the microscopic to the macroscopic. Scientists do this, by making observations measurements inferences and preforming experiments, in order to put together a framework of understanding, based on the empirically derived data. This is called a scientific theory, it will almost always have both a descriptive explanation and more importantly a mathematical model that can be used to make predictions about physical systems and entities.

For example.

The equation E=MC2 mathematically quantifies the relationship between mass and energy, which can be used to make predictions about the results of conversions of mass into energy and visa versa. Very handy in nuclear physics for example. When working out the potential yields of an atomic weapon, given any amount of supercritical explosive.

You're talking more about how science works than what it is.

I wouldn't choose the words you use but they are accurate enough for a language that every observer parses differently anyway.

Your definition for how science works barely mentions the only word you need; experiment. And omits a nearly as important word "Observation".

Science is and works by means of observation and experiment.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

In my opinion it's not the myth you should challenge. It's the premises.

What if those premises are based on belief and not on fact. You believe in many things that you have offered nothing for others to recognize as facts. Human taxonomy, change in living things, the science of evolution, the assumptions of Darwin, a belief in a mythical ancient science, language, people, some stuff about pyramids, the conundrum of your opinions offered as omniscient and simultaneously demurred as ignorance, etc.

Just as I avoid challenging the myth that science knows everything, runs of genius, and has discovered laws of nature and talk about the premises and the bad interpretations of evidence and experiment that has led to these myths.

That is your own straw man. Most people recognize that we have science, because we do not know everything. But what we have learned is not automatically wrong, because that ultimate ignorance exists as a fact.

Of course I can't make much headway because believers in science

A term that seems to fit the definition of "those that don't agree with you" and nothing really about science or belief of those that accept it and know things about it.

are the holiest of all thous and refuse to even acknowledge premises unless they can be found on wiki.

The holiest of thous seems to be a position you hold for yourself in all of this in my opinion.

I believe everyone's premises should be challenged but the best arguments to support religious premises are dismissed and the presenter insulted. Many of the religious arguers are well aware of their premises and often they make perfect sense but this isn't seen by those who know there is no God and know that science is omniscient. Believers in science aren't even aware they have premises. They think they wake of every morning and invent science anew from thin air. Most can't correctly apply even the most basic equations to reality. 50% of aviation engineers think a plane can't take off from a conveyor belt. The application of scientific knowledge to calculations, hypothesis formation,. and experiment design is typically quite difficult. It is far more difficult for those who believe in science.

This just seems like word salad and rambling hyperbole without any specificity or definition to recognize it to mean anything.

We all boil reality down into a handful of models and then think we have all the answers while no one has even come up with a working definition for consciousness. A sparrow better understands the formatting of reality than even our best scientists.

But some models are based on ideas that have no basis. You don't provide anyone with anything to consider most of what you say has an meaningful significance or basis in evidence. These are just things you believe.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

You can not understand the explanation.

Science is the definitions, axioms, and all experimental results including the nature of consciousness and language as they apply to the antecedents and to the observers. This is modern metaphysics.

This is because experiment has no meaning without the observer and the interpretation of the observer.

Peers, evidence, and opinion have no bearing on science except to the degree individuals allow it to have an effect. Each individual must build models to hold and/ or process the so much information and because we use a language which necessitates the existence of beliefs to comprehend.

Other consciousness formats reality in terms of its own brain and sees reality directly. its metaphysics is observation and the logic of the wiring of its brain.

Nobody is aware of and can properly interpret every experiment therefore is incapable of truly understanding science. This applies more to ,me especially since I've not kept up with experiments in the last 50 years. -only those that interest me or that I deem important.

And there are those "Peers" again. Mythical demons that live in the windmills of empty claims.

Evidence has no bearing on science? What do you think are the products of those experiments you hold in such near spiritual esteem?

I don't accept your revealed truth as facts and have been offered no reason to accept it. Your species concept, for instance, seems to rest on conditions that do not meet the criteria of speciation while meeting the lesser criteria of your own desire to see some trivial difference as the basis for a new species. You believe that an individual can change species. You recognize mythological events as speciation events. You don't understand what population bottleneck is and you basically describe natural selection under that name while inexplicably denying natural selection. You can't list even one of Darwin's assumptions used in the formulation of the theory while declaring them all wrong without any apparent reason other than you wish to.

Your bar for the understanding of science practically nukes all your claims about science for us. You are declaring nothing can be known about science while telling us that you know science. How is anyone supposed to follow your thinking on this?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

You're talking more about how science works than what it is.

I wouldn't choose the words you use but they are accurate enough for a language that every observer parses differently anyway.

Your definition for how science works barely mentions the only word you need; experiment. And omits a nearly as important word "Observation".

Science is and works by means of observation and experiment.

By the last statement, I see that something has gotten through, evidenced by this recently amended definition you are using for science. Recall previously your holy grail for science was solely experiment.

 

[cladking]

By the last statement, I see that something has gotten through, evidenced by this recently amended definition you are using for science. Recall previously your holy grail for science was solely experiment.

No. I've only said that ancient science was Observation > Logic and modern science is Observation > Experiment.

If you wanted a one word definition for our science it would be "experiment" but then that would make ancient science just "logic" which would be highly misleading. If you must have a three word sentence defining science then that would be "science is experiment" and this sentence could be useful in the proper context.

I personally don't make very many three word sentences and when I do they are for effect. Near as I can tell nobody is trying to understand anyway.

You might be surprised what gets through to me. I have to be cautious about what I learn though because I have a hell of a time trying to unlearn anything at all.

 

[cladking]

Your bar for the understanding of science practically nukes all your claims about science for us. You are declaring nothing can be known about science while telling us that you know science. How is anyone supposed to follow your thinking on this?

Science can not prove anything and most of all itself.

No two scientists even model science the same way however you might be surprised how closely metaphysicians model science.

 

[Little Dragon]

Your definition for how science works barely mentions the only word you need; experiment. And omits a nearly as important word "Observation".

"Scientists do this, by making observations measurements inferences and preforming experiments, in order to put together a framework of understanding, based on the empirically derived data. This is called a scientific theory,"

Perhaps I should use a larger font when replying to you in future?

 

[Little Dragon]

You're talking more about how science works than what it is.

I don't think any further discussion between us would be productive for either of us.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

No. I've only said that ancient science was Observation > Logic and modern science is Observation > Experiment.

You are describing your reaction to something not know to exist outside your own mind. You speak of intimately and persistently as if it is real to you, but can over nothing to show anyone reference to it means anything.

If you wanted a one word definition for our science it would be "experiment" but then that would make ancient science just "logic" which would be highly misleading. If you must have a three word sentence defining science then that would be "science is experiment" and this sentence could be useful in the proper context.

One word for ancient science and literally everything else you claim would be evidence. There is none.

I personally don't make very many three word sentences and when I do they are for effect. Near as I can tell nobody is trying to understand anyway.

There is nothing being offered to be understood and you listen to no one that responds to you from all the evidence.

You might be surprised what gets through to me. I have to be cautious about what I learn though because I have a hell of a time trying to unlearn anything at all.

I would definitely be surprised. In fact, I consider your revision of your definition of science to be a major breakthrough.

I would suggest that you learn about science and divest yourself of all those unevidenced claims you try to convince everyone are facts.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Science can not prove anything and most of all itself.

No one is claiming that. Point of fact it is mentioned many times here that proof is not a standard of science.

I'm not sure why you mention that in reference to science.

No two scientists even model science the same way however you might be surprised how closely metaphysicians model science.

Let's not get into more of what you cannot demonstrate.

In fact, I really should end this conversation, since I've little evidence to trust it has much meaning to anyone but me.

 

[MikeF]

In my opinion it's not the myth you should challenge. It's the premises.

It's all the same thing isn't it? The myth, a fiction held as true, is built upon fictional premises. Challenging the premises *is* challenging the myth, and vise versa.

Just as I avoid challenging the myth that science knows everything

You know this is not a position that anyone holds.

... runs of genius, and has discovered laws of nature and talk about the premises and the bad interpretations of evidence and experiment that has led to these myths.
Of course I can't make much headway because believers in science are the holiest of all thous and refuse to even acknowledge premises unless they can be found on wiki.
Many of the religious arguers are well aware of their premises and often they make perfect sense but this isn't seen by those who know there is no God and know that science is omniscient. Believers in science aren't even aware they have premises. They think they wake of every morning and invent science anew from thin air. Most can't correctly apply even the most basic equations to reality. 50% of aviation engineers think a plane can't take off from a conveyor belt. The application of scientific knowledge to calculations, hypothesis formation,. and experiment design is typically quite difficult. It is far more difficult for those who believe in science.

We all boil reality down into a handful of models and then think we have all the answers while no one has even come up with a working definition for consciousness. A sparrow better understands the formatting of reality than even our best scientists.

I'm putting all the above down to old codgery. I know you understand the abilities and limits of the scientific process and can appreciate its efficacy. I also know that you have great concern that our continued scientific advancements will surpass our ability to handle those advancements responsibly.

I believe everyone's premises should be challenged but the best arguments to support religious premises are dismissed and the presenter insulted.

I say we reject all premises and build upon the foundation of what is known.

 

[cladking]

I say we reject all premises and build upon the foundation of what is known.

No. you can't get out of bed in the morning without first holding many premises. Witch doctors and theologians also build on their premises.

You are simply assuming that your premises are sound, assumptions correct, and definitions adequate. I don't agree.

 

[cladking]

I'm putting all the above down to old codgery. I know you understand the abilities and limits of the scientific process and can appreciate its efficacy. I also know that you have great concern that our continued scientific advancements will surpass our ability to handle those advancements responsibly.

Yes, but I believe the threats facing us are far more serious than just acting on what we don't know.

Frankly I believe science (physics) has been in a rut since 1920 it might never escape on its current trajectory. The other sciences are mired down in the 19th century. Technology will continue to advance for decades but without new theory it will stop as well.

The most serious threats to the human species is our lack of understanding of whom we are and how we got here. We are threatened not so much by our vast ignorance as the fact that we perceive this ignorance as omniscience.

 

[cladking]

It's all the same thing isn't it? The myth, a fiction held as true, is built upon fictional premises.

Why would you assume there is no God and no "proper" way to live. Ancient people who are believed to be completely ignorant and wholly superstitious managed to survive long enough to give birth to homo omnisciencis so why assume they knew nothing about the proper way to live?

Was their survival the world's first miracle or do we misunderstand every single thing?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

It's all the same thing isn't it? The myth, a fiction held as true, is built upon fictional premises. Challenging the premises *is* challenging the myth, and vise versa.



You know this is not a position that anyone holds.



I'm putting all the above down to old codgery. I know you understand the abilities and limits of the scientific process and can appreciate its efficacy. I also know that you have great concern that our continued scientific advancements will surpass our ability to handle those advancements responsibly.



I say we reject all premises and build upon the foundation of what is known.

Is premise being used here as assumption? I'm not clear.

 

[MikeF]

No. you can't get out of bed in the morning without first holding many premises. Witch doctors and theologians also build on their premises.

You are simply assuming that your premises are sound, assumptions correct, and definitions adequate. I don't agree.

It can be easy to talk past each other, as words can have such varied uses. Take the word premise for example. A premise can be a factual statement from which arguments can be built, or in a purely analytical system, a premise can be invented out of whole cloth to create the boundaries and set the properties of a purely analytical system. World building in fiction or game design might be good examples here. In a fictional analytic system, one can set the properties for the elements of the system along with rules for interaction between elements in the system. Language would be another example of another purely analytic system. Which sounds are to act as abstract representation for a particular object is an arbitrary decision. Rules for written language, ie symbols used, rules for ordering symbols into words and sentences, are all arbitrary choices. Once set, however, the rules of interaction need to be observed if the abstract system is to work or function as intended.

When talking about the real world, we do not get to arbitrarily create the boundaries and rules that govern the real world. We do not get to decide the foundational premises of the real world system, they already exist. We, then, are left with puzzling them out to the best of our ability. Our task is not to make uniformed assumption or invent premises regarding the real world, our task is to figure out the boundaries, properties, and rules of the Cosmos that are already established, and to do it in a methodical, disciplined, and professional manner.

I also take issue with the way the word 'assumption' is used. The word 'assumption' is meaningless on its own. Simply using the word 'assumption' provides no indication as to the confidence attached to the assumption. We can make an assumption that is synonymous with a wholly uniformed guess. for example. Instead of speaking in terms of assumption, it would be more precise to speak in terms of expectations based on experience, especially in regards to our figuring out, and referring to, the real world.

In this regard then, it is wholly inaccurate to speak of scientific assumptions, rather, we should speak of reasoned expectations base on experience, upon empirical observation. These expectations are further qualified in science by assigning a confidence indicator to the expectation. Words like 'fact'. 'law', 'theory', and 'hypothesis' are assigned to these reasoned expectations, making it abundantly clear as to the level of confidence to which these expectations are held.

In short, science assumes nothing, it simply builds and instills confidence in that which can be consistently demonstrated.

 

[MikeF]

Why would you assume there is no God and no "proper" way to live. Ancient people who are believed to be completely ignorant and wholly superstitious managed to survive long enough to give birth to homo omnisciencis so why assume they knew nothing about the proper way to live?

Was their survival the world's first miracle or do we misunderstand every single thing?

That would be my point. It is not about assuming there is some entity, and it is not about assuming there isn't such an entity. Let go of assumption. What do we *know*. What can be demonstrated?

As to there being a proper way to live, that is a wholly subjective concept that cannot help but be different, and uniquely specific to each unique individual. How we reconcile those inherent differences and develop a social consensus is a political matter.

Ancient people were ignorant *and* wholly superstitious as a consequence of that ignorance. They survived relying heavily on their inherent and inherited animal instincts. At our ignorant core, we are no different than any other pack or social mammal.