So to summarize: I am skeptic who holds beliefs he knows might be all wrong. I have no problem with people espousing their beliefs, what I have a problem with is them insisting they know they're true.

This is why I will always cringe when I hear a preacher say: "I know God wants us to..." or a scientist say "we now know that early hominins...." because, well, they don't. As I said of course I don't go around calling people out because I know the word "know" is something used in everyday speech. I use it too, in fact I just did. But if it really seems like they think they know beyond all uncertainty, then yes I will challenge them.

And again I only brought it up here because it was being discussed. Sorry to hijack the thread lol.

Here' why tautologies don't matter: they are self-constructed. A dollar is worth 100 cents because that's what I've said it's worth. This is like saying I'm right because I'm right.

What *is* a factual claim about the real world would be something like "most people would agree that a female fox is a vixen." You don't actually know if that's true, though you may believe it is. You only have your own tautologies and assumptions (which could prove false) that other people share some of them.

Stop saying "little" is certain - *nothing* is certain. The concrete percentages were just a visualization. You can't say anything of meaning about the likelihood of an event if you can't trust your memory or perception. There is not even "somewhat certain" there is only "uncertain."

And you don't have to tack that phrase onto everything... only when attempting to explain the idea is that necessary. Once you've established you believe nothing is known people then know that when you say "I know" it's more a figure of speech than a literal claim.

Here's why it would be good if everyone was a skeptic: once you believe, you can't unbelieve it, because it's impenetrable. And once you belief it, also, you don't sweat the small stuff as much (quietude) and tend to steer clear of dogma (al-qaeda, westboro, nazism, even pure science).

It's all well and good to *say* you have an open mind but if you actually literally believe that anything is certain, you are a dogmatist: a close-minded person.

@Thucydides - you state: "There is nothing to justify logical reasoning outside of logical reasoning" wait a minute... Yes I can. (cue grandios music and an amplified voice...) *I hereby justify logical reasoning by fiat.* There. Done. Is that logical? No, of course not - so therefore it satisfies your precondition that there must be something outside of logical reasoning to justify logical reasoning. Ta da! By the way, what exactly makes you think that this is a reasonable precondition in the first place?

Dude that argument still uses logical reasoning lol try again.

Look for words like "then" "thus" and "therefore" to see if you're still using dusty old logic.

"This is why I will always cringe when I hear a preacher say: "I know God wants us to..." or a scientist say "we now know that early hominins...." because, well, they don't."

But when scientists say "we now know"... this is shorthand for "if we except certain premises as true, such as the fact I exist, even as only a thought... that this finding is consistency with earlier findings that we accept even though we know that there is a *possibility* that it is wrong... but we don't want to go into the whole nothing-is-known debate right now because we have work to do... given all of the above, we know that early hominids..."

"Here' why tautologies don't matter: they are self-constructed. A dollar is worth 100 cents because that's what I've said it's worth. This is like saying I'm right because I'm right. "

Thucy your whole argument is a tautology. You have defined knowledge in such a way as to make this whole debate meaningless.

The only permissible dogma is the dogma of total uncertainty.

Dear Thucydides, how did we come up with vaccines? How did we land on the moon? How we build large buildings and bridges? You'd think if everything was as uncertain as you claim it is, none of this would be possible. Thankfully few people follow your anti-scientific worldview that tries to sow doubt everywhere as if that's some kind of virtue, and we get on with life.

amen

"This is why I will always cringe when I hear a preacher say: "I know God wants us to..." or a scientist say "we now know that early hominins...." because, well, they don't. "

Wow... what a false equivalence. The scientist is using the word "know" in the 99.9% sense of the word - as in all available evidence - and we have quite a bit of it - support the theory that... (fill in the blank). Meanwhile, the scientist is fully aware that new evidence could come to light.

The preacher on the other hand has redefined the word "know" to mean "I'm really really sure because I believe really hard and so do want it to be the case... and it seems reasonable (as in, that's what I'd expect a God to want - if I were in charge of such things)"... of course, that assumes that the preacher is self-reflective enough to realize what necessarily must be behind his sweepingly unsupported statement.

Often both parties - the scientist and the preacher (being petty humans) use the word "know" to beat down disenting opinion preemptively... however, the difference is in the evidence and the fact that while the scientist's assertion will be either supported or refuted by further evidence and reexamination of the existing evidence, the preacher's assertion will have no evidence come to bear either way - ever.

How do you know the preacher will never have evidence?

Are you saying that because tautologies are statements that are constructed by people, they don't matter? If so, you could not be more wrong. *All* statements have been constructed by the person making them...unless they are quoting someone else who made it first. So are you saying that all statements don't matter? If you literally mean that tautologies construct themselves, come on man, that's dumb, tautologies don't have brains.

But let's put that down to bad wording and move on to your analogy. It fails because you are never right *because* you are right; the statement you used is not a tautology, it is simply incorrect. You are right because you hold a view or have made an assertion that is concordant with reality, not because you are right. The tautology I used doesn't care how many foxes are around or even if vixens exist - none of that has any bearing on whether or not 'vixen' means 'female fox'. You have not demonstrated that tautologies are in any way uncertain.

You say that believing literally anything is certain makes you a dogmatist, but the very paragraph before it you say that once you believe in skepticism, "you can't unbelieve it, because it's impenetrable." Sounds pretty dogmatic to me!

Thucy is only going to say that we don't know that the available evidence is true...

dexter_morgan is right, but I'll add to his comment. The whole notion of knowledge assumes certain premises as given, by definition. So when we talk about probabilities it is within the context of those given premises (such as I exist). But we don't want to state all of those premises every time we have a conversation. We assume some shared understanding and this works just fine.

I suppose the question is, why should you consider those premises as at all likely, spyman? If they're not, it's all kind of a pointless exercise, isn't it?

You'll never be able to prove Thucy wrong because he's not claiming anything to be right. We don't know anything for certain (except our own existence- here I disagree with Thucy) I personally believe in the existence of our universe and of an all-good omnipotent God but I can't know anything with absolute certainty.

"I suppose the question is, why should you consider those premises as at all likely, spyman? If they're not, it's all kind of a pointless exercise, isn't it? "

Pointless.... it seems to work quite well. How do you think we ended up typing on these computers?

Also when I say "assume" I mean "assume, as if they were true" (the premises that is).
It's a way of moving the discussion beyond the first point

@EmperorMaximus, it is not as much that the preacher won't listen to evidence (though there are those as well - such as young earth creationists) - but that there will never be evidence one way or the other about the existence of - and even less about the will of - God. Any evidence thus far presented could, from our perspective, be easily explained away as work of illusionists, liars, religious partisans, wishful thinkers, and perhaps (to paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke) aliens with sufficiently advanced technology that it will appear as magic (i.e. miracles). God, as a theory, cannot be tested.

"You'll never be able to prove Thucy wrong because he's not claiming anything to be right. " Exactly. I also agree that we can know very little with absolute certainty... but it hardly makes all possibilities equally likely - which is what Thucy's been claiming at various points. Thucy and the other "skeptics" (I usually use the word in a different way - to mean someone who doesn't buy pseudoscience such as astrology or other propositions without evidence) - they are trying to use reason to undermine reason. A pointless - and perhaps dishonest - pursuit. It is a paradox. Thucy cannot be successful in this pursuit because his argument must be rational to make its point... and once rational it undermines its point.

Emperor, for that I say hats off to you. You are the right kind of theist.

And yes spyman we do do that. We do it all the time, and so do I, as I've already said I don't bring this up often in conversation.

But the reason, again, that it is important that we're all on the same page (the page being: although we assume a lot, it could all be wrong), is that if we can be humble enough to accept we might be wrong, we can be humble enough to change and not to tell others they are wrong based on "knowledge" which is actually only belief.

Re: tautology. I said it before but here we go again. You say "your claim that nothing is known is tautology because you define knowledge as something that can't be known."

I said it already, but I can just as easily say "no factual statement can ever be certainly true. Any factual statement could turn out to be false." In claiming that "nothing is known" is a tautology because it defines knowledge as something you must be totally certain of, you admit my premise.

You admit that you cannot be totally certain of anything. Included in that, lest it come up again, is assertions about *how likely* certain premises are. So that would mean you can never claim to be 99.9% certain of something..

All you can claim is to belief something for you own personal reasons which are inscrutable. All belief is a shot in the dark.

Re Putin and vaccines:

If everything that appears real is real, then I am very happy that we have done those things. Assuming you read my long post about being a materialist as well as a skeptic, you would understand that I support such endeavors, as well as science. I am in no way anti-science.

I'll allow that most scientists probably mean "know" in the 99.9% sense. But so do a lot of preachers. If you read what I said just prior to that statement you'd see that I have no problem with people who, when asked, admit they don't actually know such things, they only believe them. Everyone is like that including me. There are no "true" skeptics in the sense you probably imagine, because everyone believes something, even if what they belief is that there is nothing.

Synalon: vixen is just a word. Female fox is just a phrase. Those things aren't related to physical reality.

What is related to physical reality is that if I say out loud "vixen," English speakers will know that I refer to a female fox. That has nothing to do with whether it is "true" that a vixen is a female fox. The very statement is meaningless. If I say "the lint you find in your left pocket is called jarb" and then I say "jarb is the lint you find in your left pockets," I am tautologically correct. Don't mistake this for anyone else knowing what I mean.. it's another question entirely.

Same goes for "God is omnipotent" because "things that are omnipotent are God." It doesn't matter whether omnipotence is possible, or even whether there is a God, for that statement to be "true." This tautological stuff is, again, all linguistic and ultimately meaningless/unrelated to the topic at hand.

About being dogmatic that "nothing is known," I will assume you mean "do you *know* nothing is known?" I have already answered that question, but will do so again.

No, I don't know nothing is known. To the extent this seems paradoxical, I chalk it up to the fact that the English language (or any language?) is not built to express that type of thing. Sextus Empiricus expressed this same view in this way: nothing is known, including this. In all things I suspend judgment - I do not think I know it, but do not know I will not know it - I may one day. Until then, I suspend judgment.

It's slippery concept to express in a language that is built for and by dogmatists. I want to say before anyone jumps on that statement that there is nothing wrong with that though. That's what's useful in the day-to-day; I'm not advocating a replacement of our language, I'm not anti-science, and I'm not lazy.

Quit with the mischaracterizations if you please.

To dexter and anyone else who has up to now said they know "very little" with absolute certainty.

What are these few things you know? You've not enumerated any specifically that I can tell except maybe that you exist.

And by the way Putin - doubt is a virtue because it's a recognition of fallibility. It necessitates humility in your own beliefs if you doubt everything.

I know that whatever anybody claims to know will be disputed by you out of a dogmatic commitment to doubt.

Re: being certain of the existence of God.

The existence of God is a ripe ground for the application of skeptical worldview. A thinking person understands what dexter said, that anything that *seems* to be from God could be from something else posing as God, and the reverse is also true - anything that seems like it needs no God could actually be supported or created by God.

There is one caveat though. If there is an omnipotent God, God should be able to make a proposition plain beyond all doubt, it would be one of the things an omnipotent being was capable of. I briefly mentioned a bit ago that for my own part I have prayed that such a thing happen - that we be made, through whatever divine mystery, capable of knowing something for sure.

Such as I can tell this has not happened, at least not for me. This still does not mean there is no omnipotent God. It doesn't necessarily mean anything. Until I know something for sure, I can make no claim about God. As such I'm an agnostic.

As I've said before that's one of the most poignant examples of the use of philosophical skepticism incorporated into an everyday materialist worldview.

In my text that I quoted I explained that I am not strictly a skeptic. I agree with skeptics that nothing is known, but I go beyond skeptics in that I choose to accept my appearances at face value, on faith. But I behave differently because of this mental process than I would if I had just assumed my appearances are certainly true, as I did when I was younger. It leads to mental turmoil when you realize just how much, indeed everything, is susceptible to undercutting and logical paradox. Nothing seems able to stand on its own two feet.

That is a fact. Or at least until Thucy gets bored with this game (or gives and admits he is wrong :P )

Thucy jumped in there. My post was in reply to Putin.

" It necessitates humility in your own beliefs if you doubt everything."

It necessitates mysticism and superstition. We can't know anything, everything is shrouded in mystery. The more things are "unknown" or declared to be "not knowable", the more we can insert any kind of superstitious replacement for scientific and naturalistic explanations. Furthermore, doubt is used to defend the status quo against progressive change. Oh we can't possibly *know* if humans cause global warming, so we shouldn't go about the difficult process of doing anything about it. It was just declared the marine life such as whales and sharks are facing almost certain extinction, but inevitably we'll have the skeptics declare that we "can't know" that for certain. so nothing will be done about it until we have no whales or sharks.

Skepticism for its own sake is objectively hostile to progress. The philosophy behind it is completely egotistical and anti-social. It makes the skeptic feel good to know that he is "humble" and isn't staking any claims which could be challenged, but meanwhile the world goes to shit because doubt is cast over every claim that the direction we're heading in is catastrophic.

In short, the whales would wish you would spend less time worrying about being "humble" about what is true and more time being humble about the value of human life vs everything else's life.

And we already know that you think whales are nothing but dust, so this whole skeptic meme fits in perfectly with your total lack of concern about anything except navel gazing.

@putin haha good one. What things do you know, Putin?

This is not to rebut them all, this is to get a general sense:

Putin, and anyone else, I invite to answer this multiple choice question:

Do you believe:

A) that you very little for certain? If yes, what are these things, and how do you know them for certain?

B) that nothing can be known for certain but that it is meaningless to dwell on this?

C) that the statement nothing is known is logically self-contradictory and must therefore be discarded? If yes, what is a statement is not logically self-contradictory (outside of tautologies)?

D) that nothing is known and that it is worth acknowledging... not expecting anyone to pick this one lol but it'd be great.

Putin can you name one time in other debates I have used doubt as a reason not to act or as a justification for holding a superstitious belief of my own?

Lol spyman its unlikely I'll bore of this game, I haven't bored of skepticism in the last eight years or so, despite what seems to be a boring idea. More likely I'll have to go to class again.