Fact: people cannot see the future

flyboy217 said:
I'm starting this thread because of a discussion that seems to be spanning multiple threads. I am of the impression that claims like "reading the future is impossible" and "crops just don't form natural circles" are not facts, and should not be regarded as such. I would think the strongest assertions one can make are "there is no evidence for X," "there is no logical reason to believe X," and the like. This arose from my objection to the use of a statement of the form "X is impossible" in a thread about the evidence for X.
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I agree with you. People who "know" are usually the woos, and "knowledge" is usually accompanied by arrogance. Personally I consider all things possible, except of course the simpler stuff like square circles and 2+2=5.

If a person claim that God exists, I will ask for evidence. Likewise, if a person claim that God doesn't exist, I will ask for evidence. To claim that God/pixies/Santa doesn't exist is argument from ignorance. Of course it's entirely justified to use words such as improbable, illogical, irrational and silly to describe such beliefs, since those doesn't make claims, but to use the words impossible and nonexistant doesn't really fit in with skepticism.
 
Darat said:
I think it is just about "picking your battles" wisely and challenging people appropriately, whilst appreciating that people do tend to not include the "... as far as we know", or "…to the best of our current knowledge…" in every statement.

There is also something I think of as "accurate enough". For example if we were having a general conversation and I said "The earth is a sphere" that is accurate enough although technically it isn't accurate. However if the discussion was about planetary formation then we probably need to use a more accurate statement of the shape of the earth.
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I think you're right--in the end, it's about choosing one's battles. I am perfectly willing to accept "accurate enough" statements, when they are meant only to be "accurate enough."

So then let me ask you this: do you think Lavoisier was justified in proclaiming to the Royal Society that "rocks cannot fall from the sky?" Surely it sounds silly in retrospect, but perhaps that's unavoidable.
 
flyboy217 said:
I think you're right--in the end, it's about choosing one's battles. I am perfectly willing to accept "accurate enough" statements, when they are meant only to be "accurate enough."

So then let me ask you this: do you think Lavoisier was justified in proclaiming to the Royal Society that "rocks cannot fall from the sky?" Surely it sounds silly in retrospect, but perhaps that's unavoidable.
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Not something I've ever researched or looked into, I know it as a story but I don't even know ( ;) ) without doing some research if that is exactly what he said. Without more background I information I’m "agnostic" on whether it was a reasonable statement given the knowledge available at the time or not. Or he spoke out of his hat so to speak.
 
As far as flying reindeer, there exist known mechanisms in physics that would prevent a creature of a typical reindeer's biology from flying. However, to say that there couldn't possibly exist a creature which has modifications, inborn or otherwise, to its person not so much that it could no longer be considered a reindeer, but enough and in such a way that it could overcome whatever the physiological barriers that keep the more common variety grounded is to state an unfounded claim. With clairvoyance, we're probably dealing with a much stronger example of an "appeal to ignorance" just by the virtue of the fact that many of the particulars of the human mind are still as of yet scientifically uncharted. In the case of astrology, I think that's not so much an appeal to ignorance because the system to its full extents can be easily tested and refuted.
 
Flyboy, what do you mean by fact? You keep saying that you can't say "no one can see into the future" is a fact, but in order to establish this, we need to know what you think a fact is.

From your posts, I'm pretty sure by your requirements (and mine by the way) there is no such thing as a 100% sureity. But you seem to think the word fact means 100% sure. So there are no facts by your standards.

I take fact to mean that the scientific community has enough evidence to reach a temporary agreement on something.

So by my meaning of the word fact, the earth going around the sun is a fact, that we use our brains for thinking is a fact, and that evolution occurs is a fact.

By your meaning of the word fact, the earth going around the sun is almost certainly true, but not a fact, etc....... and the result is we can never ever use this word, because it never applies in real life, and may never even apply in the most wildly fantastic story, that makes the word seem pointless. My way, I get to use it.
 
SquishyDave said:
Flyboy, what do you mean by fact? You keep saying that you can't say "no one can see into the future" is a fact, but in order to establish this, we need to know what you think a fact is.

From your posts, I'm pretty sure by your requirements (and mine by the way) there is no such thing as a 100% sureity. But you seem to think the word fact means 100% sure. So there are no facts by your standards.

I take fact to mean that the scientific community has enough evidence to reach a temporary agreement on something.

So by my meaning of the word fact, the earth going around the sun is a fact, that we use our brains for thinking is a fact, and that evolution occurs is a fact.

By your meaning of the word fact, the earth going around the sun is almost certainly true, but not a fact, etc....... and the result is we can never ever use this word, because it never applies in real life, and may never even apply in the most wildly fantastic story, that makes the word seem pointless. My way, I get to use it.
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Perhaps I should have emphasized the context more carefully in my orignal post.

In general, I have no qualms about "fact" being used in a broader sense, as you describe (child:"do reindeer fly?" mom: "no, in fact they do not.")

But in a discussion specifically regarding whether or not there exists good evidence for a particular phenomenon (e.g. a thread titled "Report of reindeer flight"), a comment such as "Nope. It is a fact that reindeer cannot fly" seems awkward and out of place, in my opinion. When are specifically searching for evidence to disprove an assertion, how sensible is it to claim the assertion as fact?

(p.s.: I think the earth and sun analogy is not relevant, as it describes a falsifiable hypothesis: we can look and get an immediate yes or no answer, given some allowed precision. Compare it to the non-falsifiable claim "the Earth will never revolve around another star," which is predicated on an unbounded time interval. Similarly, we can say that all crop circles we know of were created by humans; however, "crop circles cannot form naturally" falls into the non-falsifiable category. But that's not really what I'm driving at.)
 
Fact: I can see the future. I will answer any questions you may have about it, for a small fee.
 
What's a "fact"? I think flyboy and I are of one mind (though really, flyboy, about your sig... I don't want a permanent feud with Larsen. He has too many already. So do I.)

Dr Adequate said:
Actually, it depends where I am. If I'm down the pub, then I'll say: "People don't have precognition" without qualification. Round here, I say, "The evidence which I have seen for precognition is not sufficient to convince me, but please do present me with some more, if you know of any". Because:

(a) That's what I'm here for
(b) If I didn't, a woo would start explaining to me that I'm No True Sceptic... oh, they do that anyway... darn...
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flyboy217 said:
In general, I have no qualms about "fact" being used in a broader sense, as you describe (child:"do reindeer fly?" mom: "no, in fact they do not.")

But in a discussion specifically regarding whether or not there exists good evidence for a particular phenomenon (e.g. a thread titled "Report of reindeer flight"), a comment such as "Nope. It is a fact that reindeer cannot fly" seems awkward and out of place, in my opinion.
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The strict sense of the word "fact", as used by Flyboy217, seems to me to make word void. No such fact exists. It is a fact that no fact can ever be 100.00000% certain. There may always come an Einstain or new insight that overturns established facts.

When we speak of facts, we are of course only speaking of what is known to us now. I think we should continue to use the word because it adds an unnecessary complication to our lives if we have to take precautions about future knowledge whenever we speak about what we know.
 
steenkh said:
When we speak of facts, we are of course only speaking of what is known to us now. I think we should continue to use the word because it adds an unnecessary complication to our lives if we have to take precautions about future knowledge whenever we speak about what we know.
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Yes, yes... in real life. The point is, telling a child "It's a fact that reindeer can't fly" is information. BUT IF YOU WERE ARGUING WITH A WOO WHO BELIEVES IN FLYING REINDEER, then "It's a fact that reindeer can't fly" is petitio principii.
 
Originally posted by flyboy217 But in a discussion specifically regarding whether or not there exists good evidence for a particular phenomenon (e.g. a thread titled "Report of reindeer flight"), a comment such as "Nope. It is a fact that reindeer cannot fly" seems awkward and out of place, in my opinion. When are specifically searching for evidence to disprove an assertion, how sensible is it to claim the assertion as fact?[/B]
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In that situation, fair enough. I'd still use pretty strong language, implying it's all but fact, however, especially if you were talking to a believer, saying flat out it's a fact reindeer can't fly will just put their back up and they won't listen to you.

And yeah, it might be hard to say it's a fact, in any sense of the word, that something doesn't exist, but it's easier to say it's a fact something does exist.

I would say a whole bunch of facts all point to it not existing, but personally I wouldn't say it's a fact it doesn't exist when trying to convince someone. What's the point of trying to change someones mind if your choice of language immediately precludes them even considering your words?
 
Isn't this a long standing philosophical problem? ie. the problem of what we do or don't know with certainty.

Thinking particularly of the problem of induction put forward by David Hume.

Basically, Hume said (check out the paragraph beginning "First we may observe") that we can't rely on the uniformity of nature to support a theory since our presumption of the uniformity of nature is itself based on limited experience.

Putting words into his mouth (or at least, trying to), I think this means that we can't be 100% certain that Mojo has no invisible dragon in his bathroom. Maybe homeopathy will work tomorrow - even though all reliable experimental evidence to date shows that it does not.

Edited to add: and I'm quite happy to accept that Middlesborough have never one the premiership.

My "philosophy for dummies" book assures me that even Hume thought this was an unreasonable way to get through life, and he recommended relying on reason (experience might well be limited, but can still be extensive).

Which doesn't actually help us a great deal I suppose ... but I thought you'd like to know that it's not a new debate. Probably not a great surprise to most of you.

check out this if you have a few spare weeks.
 
apollo13 said:
Isn't this a long standing philosophical problem?
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Yes, apollo13, it is. As I mentioned, I didn't intend for this to become a philosophical debate. I should have been more clear about the context--specifically, is it reasonable to answer "it is a fact that X is not real" in a thread (or to a question) specifically about whether there could be any good evidence for X.

I think the general consensus is that it's not necessarily the best response, but that it doesn't really hurt either. In any case, I've been labeled an irrational woo by the poster, so I don't think my discussion is helping anyone in that thread.
 
flyboy217,

So, let's take it away from being a philosophical debate to something concrete:

Do you think it is a fact that you will, someday, die?
 
CFLarsen said:
flyboy217,

So, let's take it away from being a philosophical debate to something concrete:

Do you think it is a fact that you will, someday, die?
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Yes.

But remember what I said about falsifiability--if it's true that I will never die, I have no way of demonstrating it. On the other hand, if you're right and I will die, you will be able to prove it in some finite but unbounded time interval. In fact, you could even test it now, by shooting me.

This is precisely the opposite of the crop case, where the question was "is it possible that crop circles could form naturally?" In this case, anyone refuting it will never be able to provide proof, while the person asking it could possibly demonstrate that it does happen.

So ask me a question that could be answered "yes" with one (or finitely many) example(s), but answering "no" means just that the evidence is overwhelmingly against it. E.g.:

- Is it possible that reindeer could fly?
- Could a crop circle form naturally?
- Might Luci be able to predict the next ten US presidents?
- Is there any chance that you can turn spoons to putty with sheer willpower?

These are the kinds of questions to which "No, it is a fact that is not possible" is an answer I find awkward.
 
These are the kinds of questions to which "No, it is a fact that is not possible" is an answer I find awkward.
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That's why I use the shorter and more convenient "No".

If I were writing a paper on the subject then I would write that "it does not seem possible with the current known laws of the physical universe".

But outside of that situation a "No" will suffice for things as clear cut as those questions. I do not think any of them are possible so I feel entirely justified in saying so.
Evidence is not only overwhelmingly against these things, there is no evidence for them.
(Except for something like wind causing a crop circle which strikes me as possible if unlikely)
 
flyboy217 said:
Yes.

But remember what I said about falsifiability--if it's true that I will never die, I have no way of demonstrating it. On the other hand, if you're right and I will die, you will be able to prove it in some finite but unbounded time interval. In fact, you could even test it now, by shooting me.

This is precisely the opposite of the crop case, where the question was "is it possible that crop circles could form naturally?" In this case, anyone refuting it will never be able to provide proof, while the person asking it could possibly demonstrate that it does happen.
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It is exactly the same thing: All you need to do, is not die. All you need to do, is find a crop circle that was not made by humans.

It doesn't matter whether you are here to witness it: All you got to do is not die.

So, both examples are falsifiable. Same thing.

flyboy217 said:
So ask me a question that could be answered "yes" with one (or finitely many) example(s), but answering "no" means just that the evidence is overwhelmingly against it. E.g.:

- Is it possible that reindeer could fly?
- Could a crop circle form naturally?
- Might Luci be able to predict the next ten US presidents?
- Is there any chance that you can turn spoons to putty with sheer willpower?

These are the kinds of questions to which "No, it is a fact that is not possible" is an answer I find awkward.
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But it is not possible, given the known facts. It is a fact that reindeer can not fly. We can list all sorts of very convincing arguments, e.g. they don't have wings. But that fact is only valid, until one reindeer takes off, flapping his...tail? Legs? Antlers?

Same thing.
 
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