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Right, any system of belief (yours included) boils down to axioms that have to be either accepted or rejected without evidence.

I've thought many times in the past that we'd all do best if we could choose our system of belief based on how well seeing "through" it makes sense of things. But too often that sense of "how well" is subjective and so prone to being misguided based on things as small as what we had for breakfast. And it's exceedingly hard to see through the eyes of a true believer in another "faith" in the first place.

Even so, a deep-seated personal commitment to discover and submit oneself to truth in good faith, no matter where honest inquiry leads, can go a very long way.

What's true is determined by the scientific method. You can make as many theories as you want but if you can't make predictions based on that theory and devise experiments to verify those predictions, and perhaps most importantly, be open to abandoning your theory when even a single one of those experiments doesn't pan out, all you have done is shot an arrow in the dark and claimed it could have hit the target. Yes, but that information is nearly useless, and definitely can't be put on the same pedestal as someone providing actual evidence that the arrow missed the target.

There are a few issues with that position:

1) "What's true is determined by the scientific method" is, in fact, an axiom based on the old "obviously true" assumption.

2) There is thus far no evidence that the scientific method can deduce what the universe is and why it came into being. So according to the scientific method, we should probably be concluding that the truth isn't determined by the scientific method. It is a window into a fairly small subset of the truth.

3) We don't use the scientific method in court cases, we use standards of evidence and reasonableness tests. So when it matters what the truth is we don't use science (and, indeed, probably could not because it is too limited to achieve fairness).

1. The scientific method is a way to rank all the available theories that has proven remarkably useful in practice. There is no presumption in the scientific method. It's the right way only because any other way is chaotic and doesn't lead to a single answer (shooting arrows in the dark).

2. To unseat the scientific method would require a method with even more usefulness and consistent and proven track record. There is no other such method.

3. Courts are responsible for application of human law (which is completely different from an exploration of what is true). Would you be able to determine the laws of gravity in a court of law? Does that even make sense?

> ...any other way is chaotic and doesn't lead to a single answer (shooting arrows in the dark).

"God did it" isn't remotely chaotic and is a much more consistent answer than what the scientific method turns. One of the key parts of the scientific method is that scientists are constantly throwing out theories that are thought to be reasonable but eventually turn out to be inconsistent with the evidence; the process is quite muddled.

And you can't justify why you think consistency of the answer is the best indicator. It is still unlikely to give correct answers about the truly foundational stuff, the scientists just don't know.

> Courts are responsible for application of human law (which is completely different from an exploration of what is true)

You're implying that we don't care about the truth when deploying force against our own community. I put it to you that this is an area where the truth is of utmost importance. It has immediate implications on how people live! The only reason we don't make a habit of deploying scientists in the courtroom is that their methods are ineffective at working out the truth in general. They are only good at deducing a small handful of truths that are usually only important to engineers.

> "God did it"

Which god? There are billions of them if you lump all the religions together.

And what did they do exactly? And what are they likely to do in the future? How is this position any different from "we know nothing and can deduce nothing"? I don't know about you but I find that a very sad way to live a life.

> What's true is determined by the scientific method.

Not quite. This is how what is said to be True is determined...within some subset of the (culturally dominant) population, at this particular era in our semi-self-aware species' ongoing development.

Science practices watered down epistemology even in the lab, and the further you get away from the lab and toward public discussions, it gets watered down even further. And by the time it gets to the point of public discussion (science's fan base), epistemology is pretty much gone from consideration, it's regurgitation of memorization, if not worse (LLM level hallucination).

> You can make as many theories as you want but if you can't make predictions based on that theory and devise experiments to verify those predictions...

So far so good....

> ...and perhaps most importantly, be open to abandoning your theory when even a single one of those experiments doesn't pan out...

Ah crap. Crash and burn.

> all you have done is shot an arrow in the dark and claimed it could have hit the target.

This isn't true, and there's also no way for you to know these things (what individual scientists are doing, saying, thinking).

> Yes, but that information is nearly useless...

There's no way for you to know this.

> ...and definitely can't be put on the same pedestal as someone providing actual evidence that the arrow missed the target.

Yes it can. You can literally say and do pretty much whatever you want in this simulation. There are almost no constraints whatsoever, other than sheer lack of imagination (which is an extremely big problem imho)....I mean, just take your comments, and the vast majority of other comments in this thread. There's (almost) no need for anything anyone says to be true....in fact, even venturing a little outside of the Overton Window (to the positive side, on certain topics) of acceptable levels of epistemology here will certainly get you downvoted, if not warned by moderators. We have a culture here, and cultures have beliefs, and those beliefs are to be respected, regardless of the actual truth of the matter.

The truth of the matter, very often (on certain topics), is off limits for discussion. And even more interestingly: it seems like all social media platforms have somehow adopted the same set of rules for That Which Cannot Be Discussed. I often wonder if this is sheer coincidence.

Hmm - fair enough. By this (valid!) argument, _any_ statement about the world is misinformative, because there's always an implicit caveat of "...if my perceptions of the world are accurate reflections of its state, and if I'm correct in believing that other people (who report their perceptions of the world to me) are in fact other people and not just hallucinations".

I personally think it's fair to take that assumption as baseline in any discussion not specifically about epistemology, since, without it, any discussion will founder (and, _if_ that assumption is taken as an axiom, I still maintain that it's not misinformation to make the ~~true~~ overwhelmingly-supported-by-my-perceptions-and-my-perceptions-of-other-people's-perceptions statement that "human history is vanishingly-short on a universal scale") - but you are certainly technically correct.

It is a bit more than a technicality. If we start from the position that our perceptions are accurate something interesting happens.

1) If we start by assuming our perceptions are accurate; we can reasonably conclude that we are a product of evolutionary forces.

2) Those evolutionary forces mean our perceptions are subject to the anthropic principle - ie, heavily biased away from truth and towards things that cause conscious patterns to reoccur and reproduce.

3) Therefore there is strong reason to believe our perceptions aren't accurate reflections of the state of the world, because if we are in a universe where accurate perception of reality means we won't bother to reproduce or wouldn't see ourselves as conscious, we are likely be unable to perceive those aspects of it.

So I'm quite happy to contend that our perceptions are probably critically flawed, because they are heavily biased towards making us believe things about ego, self, in- and out-groups, etc that are probably inconsistent with accurately perceiving reality. Under that lens, perceiving time itself jumps out as something that might be an evolutionary adaption rather than the true state of things.

Those baseline assumptions that allow the conversation to happen are therefore probably wrong. Although, humorously, that does mean there isn't much point discussing the topic unless you just like playing around with nonsense.

Long and the short of it; we can't escape what is "obviously true" to us. Although I don't think you were challenging that part of the conversation.

> 1) If we start by assuming our perceptions are accurate; we can reasonably conclude that we are a product of evolutionary forces.

You already have an ontological and epistemic problem here, demonstrating how easy it is to get these things wrong.

Luckily, we've culturally trained ourselves to give less than zero shits about correctness on this topic, so it "is" "all good".

> By this (valid!) argument, _any_ statement about the world is misinformative, because there's always an implicit caveat of "...if my perceptions of the world are accurate reflections of its state, and if I'm correct in believing that other people (who report their perceptions of the world to me) are in fact other people and not just hallucinations".

a) Simply explicitly reveal your axioms in the statement of your case, problem solved. (Good luck finding them all though, especially the ones not on Normative Human Reality's radar though lol)

b) The "just" in "and not just hallucinations" is a big part of why humans are unable to understand what's going on, or understand that they do not understand (which is core to the implementation of "is", which "determines" what "is" going on).

> I personally think it's fair to take that assumption as baseline in any discussion not specifically about epistemology....

"Fair" is culture, not science/logic, and the culture you live in very often (perhaps even usually) values being incorrect. It insists on it.

> ...since, without it, any discussion will founder

Good! Our never ending mass self-deception during our oh so enjoyable (mandatorily so) conversations is the problem.

> (and, _if_ that assumption is taken as an axiom, I still maintain that it's not misinformation to make the ~~true~~ overwhelmingly-supported-by-my-perceptions-and-my-perceptions-of-other-people's-perceptions statement that "human history is vanishingly-short on a universal scale") - but you are certainly technically correct.

a) Sure, if you disallow epistemology.

b) Is "human history is vanishingly-short on a universal scale" the(!) point of contention here (in the opinion of all participants)?

> "Fair" is culture, not science/logic

Yep, this is true. I was speaking casually and using "fair" as slang for "helpful, reasonable, and widely-assumed". And yes, "widely-assumed" is also cultural - but in this context, that _is_ relevant, because I assume that those I'm speaking with are making common and reasonable assumptions within our shared culture, just like I assume that the words that I use mean (roughly) the same thing to me as they do to you. Otherwise, communication and collaboration are impossible unless we construct language from first principles in every discussion. Which leads neatly to the next point...

>> without it, any discussion will founder > Good!

If you think is is preferable to have discussions that go nowhere and yield no helpful outcome in order to remain _technically_ (not-in)correct, vs. taking a small number of reasonable assumptions as axioms ("our perceptions are _probably_ not hallucinations most of the time") which allow us to reach helpful conclusions that increase human happiness, then you and I will never be able to reach agreement on basically anything.

> Is "human history is vanishingly-short on a universal scale" the(!) point of contention here (in the opinion of all participants)

I don't know - if I try to put myself in your position, it seems to be that I cannot assume or know anything, and thus that I cannot make any claims about the opinions of any participants (or even that they exist), and thus banana wombat elaborate polyhedron.

> I was speaking casually and using "fair" as slang for "helpful, reasonable, and widely-assumed".

I like the convenience of this wildcard, because it also applies to everything you say in this comment. It's a neat trick: anything I call you on "doesn't count", because you didn't intend it to be technically true, because that's "not realistic" and "not reasonable".

> And yes, "widely-assumed" is also cultural - but in this context, that _is_ relevant....

Let me guess: that which you perceive to be relevant "is" relevant, and that which is not, is not.

Am I close? Is this contrary to how your thinking works? Do you not have at least a tendency to agree with your own opinions?

> ...because I assume that those I'm speaking with are making common and reasonable assumptions within our shared culture...

Let me guess: the symbols you are using here ("reasonable") have no strict definitions?

> ...just like I assume that the words that I use mean (roughly) the same thing to me as they do to you.

Give up the cognitively magical "roughly" and where are you then?

> Otherwise, communication and collaboration are impossible....

Incorrect. Not only is there is no requirement for communication to be even remotely accurate, our culture is highly aligned against such communication. Take your comment for example: you are literally defending speaking deceptively, and describing accuracy in a pejorative manner!

> ...unless we construct language from first principles in every discussion.

Its an interesting idea!

>> without it, any discussion will founder > Good!

I'm gonna reinstate the full context, lest others be misled by your reductive (thus deceptive) framing:

>> ...since, without it, any discussion will founder

> Good! Our never ending mass self-deception during our oh so enjoyable (mandatorily so) conversations is the problem.

Carrying on...

> If you think is is preferable to have discussions that go nowhere and yield no helpful outcome in order to remain _technically_ (not-in)correct, vs. taking a small number of reasonable assumptions as axioms ("our perceptions are _probably_ not hallucinations most of the time") which allow us to reach helpful conclusions that increase human happiness, then you and I will never be able to reach agreement on basically anything.

I like this because you are framing the situation as being that attention to accuracy/truthfulness will necessarily yield failure. Considering the site we're on, I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume that your feelings on the matter change when it comes to things like science, engineering, programming, etc. I bet that in these domains, you not only believe the opposite of what you're saying here, I bet you praise these disciplines for the very thing you are criticizing here. (I wonder how far back in your history I'd have to go to find evidence).

There is a whole load of other things here that could be critiqued with ease, but I've gt a busy day ahead of me so will have to pass.

>> Is "human history is vanishingly-short on a universal scale" the(!) point of contention here (in the opinion of all participants)

> I don't know - if I try to put myself in your position, it seems to be that I cannot assume or know anything....

Your problem is this: you are not trying to put yourself in my position, you are trying to put yourself in the position of your subconscious mental model of me. It's a very common error, due to it being fundamental to the culture we've been raised in.

> and thus that I cannot make any claims about the opinions of any participants (or even that they exist), and thus banana wombat elaborate polyhedron.

Ah, here you seem to be leveraging humour, a very popular technique in both rhetoric and culture/perception. I am duly impressed, though not so persuaded.

We're very very very obviously not going to reach any form of consensus here, as I'm arguing from the perspective of practicality and you are arguing from one of philosophical purity (neither incorrect, in their own domains - but often incompatible) - so I'll just pick the most relevant point to hopefully allow you to understand why, and then leave this fruitless conversation alone.

> you are framing the situation as being that attention to accuracy/truthfulness will necessarily yield failure.

No - you've misunderstood or willfully misrepresented the situation. _In general_, attention to accuracy and truthfulness are virtues which increase the likelihood of a successful collaborative enterprise. They become failings when they are excessively applied, beyond the point of helpfulness (which is a different point depending on the domain or topic under discussion). In a discussion about philosophy of mind, questions like "Are my sensory perceptions accurate reflections of the world, or hallucinations? Is it meaningful to make measurements of the world?" are pertinent, and meaningfully affect the successful outcome of the discussion. In a practical discussion about measurement of the fractional-volume of the Universe taken up by humans, they're not - if the answer is "no", the whole of the rest of the discussion is moot, so _in order to allow the conversation to proceed_ to a helpful (albeit admittedly "based on an assumed axiom") conclusion, they are taken to be "yes". The objective of the discussion is not a philosophically bulletproof airtight proof, but a conclusion which is reasonable and helpful.

If you asked a friend to give you directions on how to walk from their house to the corner store, and they answered "I can't tell you that. I only have my own perceptions to go on, and I cannot know that they reflect the world accurately, let alone any experience that you might have"; would that be a useful conclusion to the conversation? Their response would be intellectually and philosophically pure, but practically unhelpful.

If the friend said "well, last time I walked there I went north two blocks and then left on 4th street. I guess that'd work for you" - that's a philosophically weaker statement which could be criticized as inaccurate (_did_ they take that path? How do they know that? Even if they experienced sensations reflecting those statements, how do they know that those statements are true? Even if those sensations were accurate, how do they know their memory is accurate? Or that the streets haven't been reconfigured in the intervening time?), but is still helpful. It's wordier and more complex than just saying "go north 2 blocks then left on 4th", sure - but for someone aiming for philosophical purity _while still being helpful_, it's a reasonable compromise. This added attention to accuracy does not lead to a failure. But the original "I can't tell you. All experience is unknowable and incommunicable" statement _is_ a failure, despite being "more accurate". It is over-application of accuracy beyond the point of helpfulness that leads to failure, not accuracy itself.

Almost all human endeavor is built on a towering edifice of disciplines and abstractions, each relying on the stability and fitness-for-purpose of the layer below. Physics relies on the usefulness of mathematics without reproving its theorems, web application developers make use of the Internet without rewriting network protocols from scratch, athletes carry out team strategies without consciously thinking about each individual muscle activation, legislative bodies organize nations without directly communicating with each individual. _Familiarity_ with the concepts and limitations of the layer(s) below one's area of operation is valuable, to avoid making assumptions that will not hold true at the boundary - but useful outcomes almost always result from assuming that a dependency which has been consistently reliable and accurate will continue to be so. Responding to a question about practical physical measurement with a rebuttal that physical measurement is philosophically impossible is technically-true, but unhelpful.

"Like others, I prefer intuition to epistemology" would be an easier and more accurate though perhaps less satisfying way to express your game style preferences.