Coordinate everything in the universe according to his own will. This would give a meaning to all existence.
How is this different to what would happen if it did not exist?
The theories produced by science are statements.
Hmm. Scientific theories are mathematical models that are supposed to represent some real, physical process. Theories allow you to make predictions, and those predictions are statements. By validating those predictions against our observations, we can find out whether the theory is successful or not.
Science is neither true nor false; it's just a way of doing things.
Theories are just models, but together with the statement that the theory models the real universe (which is the whole point of a scientific theory, of course) they can indeed be false.
And I see no reason why they could not possibly be true.
The point is that you cannot ever know this. The Theory of Evolution certainly appears to be true; the supporting evidence is superabundant. But all we know is that it is very well supported and that there is no contradictory evidence. We assume it is true, but we can never prove it.
I don't understand. How can it "accommodate" for a flaw that is at the very root if itself?
As I said, you are making this up. It's nonsense.
Our eyes cannot see beyond a small band of the electromagnetic spectrum; cannot see very dim objects, or very small ones; burn out in short order when looking at very bright ones; have limited spatial resolution; have limited colour resolution even in the visible range (and even that is frequently faulty or missing entirely); cannot go at all into hostile environments without the host body dropping dead of heat or cold or asphyxiation or radiation damage or whatever; and are very commonly misfocused.
That's just our physical eyes. Our
vision is much worse. We see things that aren't there and don't see things that are. There is, for example, a well-known optical illusion that will reset your colour perception based on whether lines are horizontal or vertical (!!), and the effect can last for
months after a single viewing.
Still relying on our own senses.
Adjusting for every limitation of our senses.
So in our material reality, will you admit that science (or the theories of science) may well be true?
Not science, no. The statement has no meaning.
As for theories, they may be true, but you cannot know that. It is impossible.
The theories of science are statements. I have been refering to this since the very beginning. If you thought that I was addressing the method of science, then I am very sorry and admit that I should have been clearer.
Okay. That makes a lot more sense then. I apologise in turn for my part in the misunderstanding.
Can you admit that something can be meaningful, just not to you?
Remember, I'm starting from the assumptions of metaphysical naturalism. Based on those assumptions, no well-formed hypothesis about the material universe can ever be shown to be true.
Saying that it could be true is irrelevant to the point of... Well, something. Let's look at Godel's work in mathematics. Godel showed that in any system of mathematics, there are statements that cannot be shown to be true or false. It is both impossible to reach those statements from the axioms of the system, and impossible to show that they can't be reached.
Now, that's just an analogy. But in science, theories are models that produce predictions. X => Y. So we observe that yes, X is true, and here we go, Y is also true. Confirming evidence.
If we observe that Y is not true, that immediately falsifies the theory, by the standard laws of logic.
But we can't go the other way; no number of observations can ever prove the proposition.
I remain un-smote. Insofar as religion has given me testable cases, my atheism has survived those tests. Insofar as religion cannot give me testable cases, I fail to see the point in it.
Right. So science is still a form of belief. As much evidence as you may have, you need a formal proof to, well, prove it (recall maths).
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
The axioms are beliefs - probably, in fact, hypotheses, though I'm not entirely convinced of that.
You cannot prove them. They are tentative assumptions used in an attempt to make sense of the world, and they happen to be assumptions that work. So far, they are the
only assumptions that work.
You cannot prove science, because it is a tool, and the concept is not even applicable.
And you don't need to believe
anything. You can believe that science is entirely poppycock; you can be a dualist, of all things, and still conduct valid scientific research as long as you do it by the rules.
Oh, in case you have missed it:
X is proven => X is true
X is true =/> X is provable
Yes, this is correct. (And something Dustin would do well to learn.)
The point is, we know that theories are
by definition not provable. Constantly saying "But it could be true!" is pointless because you cannot
ever know.
If you disagree with this statement, then you believe that everything can be known to us. My point is that this (previous sentence) is only a belief and that a careful mind will allow for other possibilities.
Even if you don't believe in the axioms of science, it consistently produces accurate predictions of the behaviour of the universe. Nothing, NOTHING besides science has ever achieved that.
So belief in itself is irrelevant.
As for other metaphysics, other epistemologies, well: Either they are compatible with naturalism, and thus redundant, or incompatible with naturalism, and thus incompatible with science. Given that science is the most successful and productive idea our species has ever had, a metaphysical system that disputes it had better have a damn good reason for doing so.
(I myself am a materialist, rather than simply a naturalist. And I recognise that this makes no particular sense, and no difference at all.)
As I have said any number of times, science is based on two assumptions, and every theory of science is tentative. But those assumptions work. I have no reason to consider alternatives, not until you show me that those alternatives work better. (Or indeed, at all.) That's not a claim that naturalism has been proven, which is of course impossible; merely that the success of science has rendered all of immaterialist philosophy, from Plato to Berkeley to Searle, simply irrelevant. (As a means of understanding the nature of the universe, that is; it may still be just ducky as literature or as humanism or some such.)
I realise that we may have had a misunderstanding on what exactly I was refering to with 'science'. If so, I blame myself for it and, again, I am very sorry...
'Salright.
I should have gone back to definitions earlier. Glad we've got that mostly straightened out.
