wakemanjohn said:
Actually, Shredderbeam, your examples are of linguistic rather than logical tautologies because they are based on the definitions of the words involved. Your definition is mostly right though, in the sense of a logical tautology: a tautology is a true proposition that conveys no new information. Examples would be: "today it will snow or not snow", or "Clinton will win or not win the nomination", etc.
Actually, yes, you're right. I didn't think of that.
wakemanjohn said:
And yes, of course it is possible to prove that something exists, or would you be so bold as to try to deny that the words you are reading right now do not exist. Do you question or deny your own existence?
Well, it is possible to reasonably prove that something exists. I can see the words, it is a subjective experience that my consciousness is experiencing, and it is not irrational for me to believe what I see.
However, it is not impossible for me to be wrong. It could be an illusion of sorts.
As to the concept that the knowledge of self is the only immutable thing that one can know for certain (outside of tautologies), I'm not so sure. I can see that the experience of self could be an illusion, though it is quite difficult to put into words. Sometimes, I vaguely see myself from a third person perspective, or seem to, at any rate. This provides a tiny glimpse into how it might be possible.
If I may provide a rather uncouth example: When one is intoxicated, to the point of "blacking out", one's awareness seems to slip away, though the body continues to function. It's rather like transforming into a philosophical zombie (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie), a somewhat unsettling experience.
wakemanjohn said:
It is also possible to prove that something does not exist if you limit the scope of your investigation. There are no dragons in my living room. What cannot be proven is a universal negative proposition; such as: God does not exist.
Well, said dragon could be invisible, extremely small, always be right behind you, etc.
wakemanjohn said:
It is more difficult to prove that something does not exist than to prove that something does exist, at least if we are talking abot scientific proof (rather than some sort of vapid metaphysics). To scientifically prove that something exists, I need olny observe it, and have my observations verified by others. Based on numerous verifications (i.e., reliability), the scientific community would be forced to accept that the observed phenomenon did in fact exist. Theory would give way to fact... It is more difficult to prove that something does not exist, because skeptics can always argue that more observations are needed to reach a conclusion.
Yes, now there I agree. I would say that, at least in my world view, there are two ways of proving something: Purely logical proof, and scientific proof. To scientifically disprove something like God universally is just about impossible, because there is no way that we can observe every point in the universe simultaneously. It would be much easier to prove that God did exist, for example, a God coming down and performing clear and obvious miracles, answering questions, subjecting itself to some sort of test, etc.
The Supreme Intelligence said:
This is one of those rare occasions where Shredder actually agrees with someone.
Lol, I agree with people a large amount of the time. I just usually don't say anything if I agree, unless I feel the need to clarify something.
