Re: The Joy of *small* business

On 22/12/2024 21:54, D wrote:

  On Sun, 22 Dec 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
 

On 22/12/2024 11:28, D wrote:

The only difference is the latter big bang has a sentient intelligence with a Plan in charge.
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Really we only reject it on the slender basis of Occam - it's simply more complicated than necessary to explain this shit.

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I'd add to that that one is a process and open to change (which has happened and does happen occasionally) and the other a religion.
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I wasn't talking about the *practice* of science, or of religion for that matter. I was talking about their metaphysical *beliefs*.

 Ahh... our definitions differ when it comes to science. I was tricked! But I will drop this line as I think it leads us back to old threads. ;)
 

I have mixed feelings about Occam, since Occam tends to shut down waaaay too many discussions waaay too quickly. Who is to say what is, in reality "simpler" or less complex, if the understanding of the questions is lacking?

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Precisely, In many ways the God explanation is simpler :
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"God did it all,  and faked it so it looks like he was never there at all, to test you fuckers"
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...there are only three people who understand quantum physics and two of them are liars....

 This is the truth and exactly one of the things I do not like with Occam. If you're on team God (TM) that's the easiest explanation, if you're on team Science (C), that's nonsense, and your version is the simplest.
 There's no way to decide from a neutral point, if you are dealing with religious people regardless of if they are from the religion religion, or the religion science (which has very little to do with the science as a process).
 

But if you examine Occam from outside the confines of realism and materialism, he makes perfect sense.
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1. The problem of induction means that no inference  can ever be proved to be correct.
2. So given that its all bullshit anyway, why not pick the simplest bullshit that fits the facts?
3.  ...And fits within the accepted already established bullshit, that works...

 Ah, but the problem of induction is a chimera, an illusion. Popper argued that justification is not needed at all, and seeking justification "begs for an authoritarian answer".
 The only thing we need to worry about is if it works, and that's it.
 

Yes, but Realist/materialists reject stuff that works on the basis that its 'not real'...

That is today's problem., People are absolutely reluctant to abandon the established bullshit, that works.

 This is not a problem, this is the way. If it works, is in fact the only way. If that is abandoned, everything else is meaningless. That is the strength of materialism and a common, shared external world, and one of the best arguments for it.

It is an argument for a shared external world, but not for its materiality

 We've been down this path many times before I think.
 

Even when they know it is actually wrong.
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The Kuhnian paradigm shift  is staring them in the face, but they simply cant accept it.
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--
“Ideas are inherently conservative. They yield not to the attack of other ideas but to the massive onslaught of circumstance"
    -  John K Galbraith