esk@wucs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek) (02/26/85)
Congratulations Ken, on *totally* missing the point. Where there is a will to misinterpret, there is a way... > The position of the medieval catholic church was that people ought > to believe that the sun orbited the earth. Was that belief, in fact, > "correct"? No, because people ought not to believe that the sun orbited the earth. They ought to believe otherwise because the (*humanly accessible*) evidence is against it, and because it is a *can*-lose proposition. >>Rich, you naive realist: If there are realities which are unknowable and >>hence uninteresting, then so much the worse for *them*. > That's like saying, "If I'm brained by a boulder, but it was > unknowable to be because I could not have known what hit me, > then so much the worse for the boulder." Sour grapes? Boulders are knowable. Try again Ken. (OK, maybe so much the worse for *us* if there are unknowable realities, too. The point is: if something is *ex hypothesi* unknowable it is *ipso facto* uninteresting, i.e. not worth worrying about.) > Belief is not the same as knowledge; believing something to be true > does not make it so. -- he said, as if the person he was replying to had implied anything to the contrary. > The alleged "can't lose" nature of believing some proposition does not > make that proposition correct. It makes it worth believing. That's what counts. >> If you ... favor ... a "correspondance theory" of truth, then >> you face exactly two possibilities: either all such truths are >> what we ought to believe, or some aren't. If some aren't, THEN >> SO MUCH THE WORSE FOR THOSE TRUTHS. > Then (by the claim of the medievals as to what ought to be believed), > we should pretend like the sun really does orbit the earth... Except for one all-important point: the medievals were wrong about what we ought to believe. (See above.) >> Look at it this way: accepting a hypothesis is a *decision*. > One's decision does not change reality. Acceptance of the phlogiston > hypothesis does not make it (empirically) superior to combustion theory. Which proves that there are better and worse decisions. So what else is (cough!) new? --YAWNING in Ken's general direction, Paul V. Torek, ihnp4!wucs!wucec1!pvt1047 Don't hit that 'r' key! Send any mail to this address, not the sender's.
kjm@ut-ngp.UUCP (Ken Montgomery) (03/27/85)
[ Kindly pardon the belatedness... ] >From: esk@wucs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek) > >Congratulations Ken, on *totally* missing the point. Where there is a >will to misinterpret, there is a way... An auspicious start, Paul. The ad hominem attack is a venerable :-) Usenet debating tactic. >> The position of the medieval catholic church was that people ought >> to believe that the sun orbited the earth. Was that belief, in fact, >> "correct"? > >No, because people ought not to believe that the sun orbited the earth. >They ought to believe otherwise because the (*humanly accessible*) >evidence is against it, and because it is a *can*-lose proposition. Accessiblity of evidence is often controlled by the technology of the times. Does that mean that what one "ought to believe" is controlled by the available technology? Also, precisely what important (to them) loss did the medievals suffer by believing in a geocentric universe? What would most of us lose? (Not that I'm advocating geocentrism, but the notion that the medievals would have "lost" something seems bogus.) >>>Rich, you naive realist: If there are realities which are unknowable and >>>hence uninteresting, then so much the worse for *them*. > >> That's like saying, "If I'm brained by a boulder, but it was >> unknowable to be because I could not have known what hit me, >> then so much the worse for the boulder." Sour grapes? > >Boulders are knowable. Try again Ken. (OK, maybe so much the worse for >*us* if there are unknowable realities, too. The point is: if something >is *ex hypothesi* unknowable it is *ipso facto* uninteresting, i.e. not >worth worrying about.) Until it hits you... My point was that it sounds to me like you think that an unknowable reality is *itself* worse off because *you* can't know about it; this idea (if I understood you correctly; if not, please elucidate) is ridiculous. >> Belief is not the same as knowledge; believing something to be true >> does not make it so. > >-- he said, as if the person he was replying to had implied anything to >the contrary. Your "can't lose" proposition sounds exactly as if you mean that believing something makes it true. >> The alleged "can't lose" nature of believing some proposition does not >> make that proposition correct. > >It makes it worth believing. That's what counts. No, it doesn't. The only thing that makes something worth believing is for it to be true. >>> If you ... favor ... a "correspondance theory" of truth, then >>> you face exactly two possibilities: either all such truths are >>> what we ought to believe, or some aren't. If some aren't, THEN >>> SO MUCH THE WORSE FOR THOSE TRUTHS. > >> Then (by the claim of the medievals as to what ought to be believed), >> we should pretend like the sun really does orbit the earth... > >Except for one all-important point: the medievals were wrong about >what we ought to believe. (See above.) But how can you know, at any given time, what you are wrong about? >>> Look at it this way: accepting a hypothesis is a *decision*. > >> One's decision does not change reality. Acceptance of the phlogiston >> hypothesis does not make it (empirically) superior to combustion theory. > >Which proves that there are better and worse decisions. So what else is >(cough!) new? But how to tell the difference? Your "can't lose" proposition seems to me to *obscure* the very difference (in the possible choices) in which you claim to be interested! > --YAWNING in Ken's general direction, Maybe you should get more sleep? :-) > Paul V. Torek, ihnp4!wucs!wucec1!pvt1047 -- The above viewpoints are mine. They are unrelated to those of anyone else, including my cats and my employer. Ken Montgomery "Shredder-of-hapless-smurfs" ...!{ihnp4,allegra,seismo!ut-sally}!ut-ngp!kjm [Usenet, when working] kjm@ut-ngp.ARPA [for Arpanauts only]