I remember when I blew up a few years ago at a time when I had much less at stake than I do now.  I'm not sure if you remember my argumentativeness around Old Engineer's "guess the date when BTC will hit $4" contest.  To this day, I feel my blowback (albeit prior to the implementation of the trust system) was justified, but I realized I had to tone it down a bit for the sake of my reputation.  A couple years later, I'm on default trust, and while my posts often take a contrarian position, I don't think I've done anything that warrants excluding me from the list. 

Sometimes certain issues rub you the wrong way, or you might be having a bad day, or a combination of things.  TECSHARE essentially acknowledged he went overboard by fabricating elements of his feedback, and he has since corrected them.  To me, this demonstrates a heathy level of awareness of what's transpired here, even if additional awareness only came as a result of hindsight (I.e. the blow ack he received in this thread).

To me, trust has a lot to do with consistency.  And even in spite of this particular issue, I think TECSHARE has done more than enough to demonstrate that he is an honest seller.  As far a I can recall, this is the only issue in which he has come under the microscope, and given that he's been an outstanding trader otherwise, I still think he deserves a place on default trust.  I think his defensiveness and attitude is warranted, and while I'm not in favor of fabricated or frivolous feedback, he has corrected the fabrication; whether his feedback was frivolous is up for interpretation.  I don't see it as frivolous because, according to his feedback history, it seems like an anamoly.

If I'm understanding you correctly, you are essentially notating the relationships between what things are and what they are not, e.g. we can ascribe things to exist specifically because they are not non-existent.  And, extending to specific conditional events, we define them in terms of both what they are and what they are not, e.g. apple is an apple because it isn't a not-apple.

If this isn't what you're implying, could you provide additional clarity?  Furthermore, how would you describe the relationship between consciousness and "non-existence?"

How would you describe the relationship between potential and nothing? 

I agree with basically all of this, with the exception that we probably differ in opinion on how "extreme" the circumstances must be.

So long as that 'other' universe is beyond the scope of observation, that's fairly irrelevant, especially in a practical sense.  Are you aware of any proofs that necessitate other universes with unique syntax? 

The "hindsight" I'm talking about is what occurs at the introduction of new evidence that does not fit the current theory.

I'm also on default trust, but I don't personally reserve feedback for business transactions. You were made aware of this yesterday lol

That being said, I don't hand out feedback frivolously.  I don't believe TECSHARE does, either.

The trust system is just a way to publicly announce who you personally trust or distrust and why.  I'm sure TECSHARE is well aware that if he were to frivolously provide negative feedback to a whole bunch of people it would kill his reputation.  Accordingly, I perceive this as an anamoly.

Hindsight?  For current theories, I'm not sure why it would be an issue so long as you acknowledge the limitations of your methodology.  I'm speaking here in reference to conclusions based upon observation.  With reference to purely abstract theories, you can avoid the issue entirely by knowing that you're absolutely and provably correct.  This latter type of theories must only acknowledge the boundary of sound reasoning.

If you would read my posts, I wouldn't have to repeat myself.

Again, science *never* states conclusions as perfectly or absolutely true.  For example, if someone says, "Science (now referenced as a body of knowledge, as you did) supports evolution, so evolution is true," it's the same as saying, "We interpret our findings to mean evolution is the best explanation at this time."  If you would read the scientific papers instead of reading news articles or other sources of informal discourse, you would find that exactly 100% of all peer-reviewed, scientific studies never state conclusions with a 100% confidence level.  And if you find a scientific paper that does, then it should never have been published.

It's not that science (now referenced as a method; I can't believe I actually need to do this for you) stops at evolution.  If new evidence presents itself, then scientists will simply try to learn as much as they can to reach a new, more comprehensive theory that incorporates the new data.  I personally interpret the same evidence used to support the traditional view of evolution in a different way, and so I have reached my own conclusion based upon what I've evidenced.  If new evidence arises, then I will have to drop my original conclusion.

By the way, the definition of *any*thing is a theory of that thing.  Theories can be good or bad, right or wrong, comprehensive or inapplicable/hypothetical.  A theory is just an abstract, mathematical construct.  All reported conclusions in science are abstract, mathematical constructs.  [Edit: I forgot to mention that, while there are many types of theories, a scientific theory is one that has strong scientific rigor, which means the theory has been thoroughly explored in a consistently methodical way.]  All of your thoughts are also abstract, mathematical constructs.  Do you see where I'm going with this?

If not, it's this:  Yes, I'm arguing against you, but my primary argument here is that you do exactly what you criticize all the time.  So, basically I'm just trying to tell you that you are the one defeating your own argument.  I could say nothing and just let you contradict yourself all day and be a hypocrite, but I'm taking the time to help you with this, so I'd appreciate it if you would actually try to read my posts.  Is that so much to ask?

Why do you ask "Why...the 'ifs'...?"   I literally just explained it.

Here:

You didn't read or comprehend anything I said until I mentioned Jesus, did you?

You use inductive reasoning every day of your waking life.  If you didn't you wouldn't be able to survive.  Science utilizes inductive reasoning.  Do you know what else requires inductive reasoning?  Here's a list:  

Cooking a meal; constructing a house; putting on clothes; wiping your ass; having manners and learning to be sociable, reading a map; reading a book; understanding a movie; etc.

Basically, inductive reasoning is the reason why every life-enhancing technology exists, why people adapt to social and other environmental conditions, and heck, it even made the paper and the ink that your Bible is made of.

And you want people to convert away from that?  All of that is a product of science (you keep calling it science; it's a product of science in this context).

TL;DR: You already do what science does all the time.  You're taking a hypocritical position.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here.  All of that reinforces exactly what I said.  The simplest explanation that explains all of the facts without introducing additional unverifiable assumptions is that he is a liar.  Claiming otherwise introduces additional 'facts' that can't be accounted for, i.e. assumptions.

Science as a method doesn't use ifs.  Ever.  We always know exactly what to do next.

Again, you are talking about science in the context of being a body of knowledge, i.e. the conclusions, and even then you're really stretching it.  There's something called a margin-of-error in science, and it's always utilized.  And for that very reason, we never say "prove" in science, and even if we do, there's an unspoken "within such-and-such margin-of-error" footnote attached to it.  Specifically, the reason we can never say "prove" is because we would need to evidence all cases prior to our observations and also all cases that ever could arise in the future.

The problem is that religions are faith-based systems.  I'm not necessarily saying faith is the problem, but in this debate, it's a huge problem for you and your argument.  You're dissing science because you're essentially complaining that one can always formulate more questions after a scientific conclusion, even with something as seemingly concrete as a scientific law (e.g. "Is it possible that Universal laws can change over time?").  But, in contrast, you defer to and advocate for a religious view (by the way, you invoke a false dichotomy, here -- a fallacy in its own right) by basically claiming that it gives you all the answers so that you don't need to ask any more questions.

And so, getting to the root of your problem, you completely gloss over the relationship between faith and reason, where one uses evidence to justify faithfulness.  Accordingly, even with faith, you depend on reason and evidence, and by undermining an inductive process like the scientific method, you are undermining your own inductive reasoning that leads you to live with a religious world view.

Here, I'll defer to the Bible, and remind you that Jesus advised to have faith "the size of a mustard seed."  And, as you know, while capable of growing, mustard seeds are very, very small.

Vod, out of curiosity, do you allow for the following possibilities?

1) There may be one God and there may be people who have gained legitimate and true insight into the existence of God, but due to the existence of many civilizations spanning vast periods of time, in different parts of the world, and with their own genetic and cultural differences and influences, there have resulted countless contradictory interpretations of God?  Or, more simply put, do you allow the possibility that people fucked up the interpretation of something actual?

2) Stemming from #1, that there may be some aspects of the Bible that are true and some that aren't?  Here, I'm speaking to the spiritual aspects of the Bible, and not just something like "Did so-and-so exist."

3) That God may exist, but that those with malintent and in a position of power intentionally skewed the truth to control others (rather than just making the whole thing up)?

And, if I had to guess your response, I'd imagine it to be something like, "No, because now we have the scientific method to test for such claims, and we have no evidence for them."

No, this isn't semantics.  I'm correcting your orientation on the context of the topic.


That is the Scientific Method. On the other hand, you are talking about science as a body of knowledge, as seen here:  
However, utilizing this definition of science misses the context of the topic at hand.  I have no problems agreeing that science doesn't yield knowledge that is capable of explaining the entire Universe and all that it contains, and in fact it cannot due to the problem of inductive reasoning.  But that's not what we're talking about.

The reason you're way off base is because you made the following assertion:


This assertion implies that you are talking about taking a religious perspective as a means of study, i.e. a method.  You reaffirm this position when you state...:


...thereby further implying that changing the method by which you interpret the Universe, knowledge will be more readily available to us.

Accordingly, you better get another cup of coffee to get focused enough to keep up with me here

This argument is ridiculous.  What did you expect?  A global advertisement campaign costing tens of millions of dollars before BTC ever had its first documented transaction and therefore no established value?  You have a weird concept of what "fair" is.

Given the 7+ billion people on this planet of which over half have no direct private Internet access, I'd love to hear what you would have done otherwise to, 1) ensure everyone knows about the idea and that everyone gets an equal opportunity to get in at the same time, 2) ensure that the tens of millions of dollars you spent marketing the idea can be recouped by the value you believe BTC is destined to reach, and 3) prevent Satoshi from reaping the rewards of his own invention, which would probably make recouping that advertising money impossible, anyway?   I mean, even typing this sounds ridiculous.

It was more like, "Hey, here's this cool idea I came up with.  I think it's novel.  Here's exactly how it works, and you can do whatever you want with it.  But, I'm going to start mining this thing, and you're welcome to join if you want to."  And you call that unfair?

I disagree.  It is not the simplest explanation as it invokes additional, unnecessary assumptions.  Specifically, in addition to the assumption that the 'psychic' is telling the truth, it introduces the assumption that we should ignore all of the hundreds of times that people have claimed to perform such "supernatural" abilities but have failed or have conclusively been found to be liars.  Since we do have evidence that others who have made similar claims have either failed to prove their claims or have been proven outright liars, we only need to introduce one assumption to reach a conclusion, i.e. that the supposed "psychic" is a liar.

Science is absolutely not too big for anyone to hold in his mind completely. Science is a method.  Here, watch:



If you understand that image, then you understand the entirety of the scientific method.  Again, science is a method and NOT that which it studies (which is likely too big for anyone to hold in his mind completely).

And, based upon your post, since you have *again* failed to construct a succinct, coherent argument even after I babied you by giving you a fill-in-the-blank template, I'll assume this post concedes the superior argument to me.

Thanks for that

Science isn't something that's proven.  This is your fundamental misunderstanding of what science is.  Science is a 'method' of applying a logical process to understanding the world.  Science simply utilizes certain logical tools while disposing of others that are irrelevant to empirical study.  Religious people such as yourself must also use logic -- the same logical language from which yields the scientific method --
to analyze the Bible and form your own interpretations thereof.

In other words, the only difference between scientists and your self in this debate is that scientists abide by a logical system of reasoning *which has clearly defined boundaries* so that they know which conclusions are permissible and which aren't.  You, on the other hand, talk about science as if it draws from a set of entirely different logical rules.   This is simply wrong.  Logic is what it is and everyone uses it, but scientists simply use a more contained system of logic, i.e. logic that is applied *to observations and evidence* in order to make sense of it all. While scientists know where the boundaries are, you have no freaking clue where the boundaries of logic are, and you constantly overstep those boundaries and wander into the realm of literal nonsense ("nonsense" = does not make sense).

By the way, what do you think about the Pope's recent declaration in support of evolution, which is essentially a declaration in support of the scientific method?

Or it could be even more problematic.  Assume for a second that communication with the "dead" is possible, but only in rare situations.  If it is possible, but not possible all the time, this would fall beyond the scope of science anyway as consistent replication is necessary to build scientific rigor.  I'm not stating this as an argument in support of communication with the dead, but rather as a reminder that there does exist phenomena which is either too rare, too large, or too small that is beyond the scope of pure science.  Unfortunately, those who assert specific phenomena in the absence of their own experience will use this as a crutch in support of their assertion, which is essentially a guess, anyway. Speaking from my own experiences with meditation, I believe I have directly experienced that which scientists would claim is unfounded based upon a lack of evidence (i.e. the expansion of my consciousness to occupy a region of spacetime that extended beyond my physical body), and due to my undisciplined meditation routine, I would not be able to confidently replicate my experiences at will in a controlled setting, though I have replicated the experience on three distinct occasions.

Nonetheless, Occam's Razor is still a good rule to follow in these types of debates.