[extropy-chat] Let's try this again.

[A B]

Hi John,
   
  John wrote:
  "Young? The idea that matter uniquely determines what we are is as old as the
hills, but discoveries in science made about 90 years ago proves this can
not possibly be true."...
   
  When I wrote "young", I was referring to this particular (new) conclusion which is a mere few weeks old, as far as I can tell. I doubt any philosopher from the past has stood before his peers and claimed with a straight face: "Though I appear to you to be alive, I actually died yesterday."
   
  John, 
  "...the idea that the you of
yesterday could be dead and you didn't even know it would have been crazy."
   
  I've always acknowledged that the idea sounds "crazy". But that alone is not solid grounds for dismissing it altogether.
   
  John:
  "When there are far more holes than arguments it's time to look for another
theory."
   
  Except in cases where the answer is staring you in the blood face, almost all theories begin with far more holes than arguments. Radical theories typically begin with only the faintest insight, and then build up from there. If a new idea was dismissed every time an inconsistency appeared, we would still be living in the 12th Century.
   
  John:
  "That's not the way science works, you don't decide what is true and then
look for evidence of it, you look at the evidence and then form a
conclusion."
   
  In almost all cases, the evidence alone is fragmentary and insufficient. You bring as much evidence together as you can and form a *hypothesis* which you then attempt to strengthen through experimentation or logic. Our conclusion as of right now represents our hypothesis. If this were a simple 3 part argument, we would prefer to move in a beginning-to-end direction. But this hypothesis is not simple or straightforward, it's ugly and counter-intuitive. If in the end, the logic is perfectly sound and the conclusion is proven true, it won't matter how we arrived at it; it's still valid, even if not pretty during construction.
   
  Best Wishes,
   
  Jeffrey Herrlich 

John K Clark <jonkc at att.net> wrote:
  A B Wrote:

> it's important to keep in mind, that this conclusion/idea is still *very*
> young.

Young? The idea that matter uniquely determines what we are is as old as the
hills, but discoveries in science made about 90 years ago proves this can
not possibly be true. Mr. Heartland's could have presented a stronger case
in the 19'th century than he can now, but even then the idea that the you of
yesterday could be dead and you didn't even know it would have been crazy.

> I don't deny that huge holes are missing from the argument

When there are far more holes than arguments it's time to look for another
theory.

> Let's take the conclusion and work backwards to put together a convincing
> argument, further supported by evidence if possible.

That's not the way science works, you don't decide what is true and then
look for evidence of it, you look at the evidence and then form a
conclusion.

John K Clark






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