From: nospam@example.net   
      
   On Wed, 19 Mar 2025, Ed Cryer wrote:   
      
   > D wrote:   
   >>   
   >>   
   >> On Tue, 18 Mar 2025, Ed Cryer wrote:   
   >>   
   >>> I don't doubt that the mind is a product of the brain; and that the brain   
   >>> is   
   >>> physical. Nor have I ever seriously doubted that the world is physical and   
   >>> real. I'm a naive realist by temperament. I like to call myself a "western   
   >>> scientific rationalist".   
   >>   
   >> Hooray, I'm not alone! ;)   
   >>   
   >>> All this seems rather unphilosophical. I guess I'm no philosopher. I just   
   >>> like   
   >>> talking with intelligent people, and having my mind stimulated by   
   >>> interesting   
   >>> speculation. Let the dialogue of reason continue. It's the breeding ground   
   >>> of   
   >>> new ideas and change.   
   >>   
   >> Well, it can be! Discuss with quantum physicists and then discuss if you   
   >> should   
   >> or should not infer things from formulas that can never be proven or shown   
   >> evidence or disproven (choose your favourite). Are you justified in   
   >> believing   
   >> the inferences?   
   >>   
   >> Also, debating idealists can be fun, but as soon as it devolves into   
   >> eternal   
   >> doubting and skepticism, I bow out, because there is no reason to continue   
   >> the   
   >> discussion.   
   >>   
   >   
   > I think scepticism is fundamental to empiricism. You only have to consider   
   > the history of scientific theories that have been abandoned along the way.   
   > About the end of the 19th c people thought science was complete apart from   
   > one or two small anomalies. And then along came a major paradigm shift with   
   > Relativity and quantum mechanics. The unsplittable atom was shattered, and a   
   > micro world almost beyond human understanding revealed.   
   >   
   > And look at today's looming questions; black holes, dark matter & energy, how   
   > did life begin, what is consciousness, alien intelligence, other universes.   
   > Collectively they make you think that we're only at the start of the journey   
   > toward knowledge; and that in a few hundred years we of today will look as   
   > unknowing to a scientist as Aristotle seems to us.   
   >   
   > Why do I stick with it? It's the best available for all its faults; rather   
   > like what Winston Churchill said about democracy.   
      
   This is the truth. Sorry for being unclear. Skepticism is good, but   
   skepticism, where you doubt your senses, thoughts or the external world,   
   is destructive, and self-refuting.   
      
   Skepticism and agnosticism, in the form of refraining from having an   
   opinion until more evidence is collected, is very important to science.   
   You can easily reconcile that position, with not doubting your senses   
   according to me.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)