The "Stage Theory of Theories" - Cause for Concern?

Take dark matter as our example. Various positions one might adopt include the following:

* Scientific Realism: I believe dark matter is real. I think there is sufficient warrant (i.e. enough evidence) for believing this. I could of course be wrong.

* Constructive Empiricism (à la Bas van Fraassen above): I don't believe dark matter is real. The theory is indeed making an assertion about the existence of dark matter (a question of semantics), but I feel the epistemological warrant is insufficient to commit to a belief in its existence (a question of epistemology). There isn't enough evidence. I remain agnostic.

* Instrumentalism: I don't believe dark matter is real. The theory is not even making any assertions about the reality of dark matter (a question of semantics). It's a "useful fiction" like "ideal gas" and "point mass". The theory is not to be read literally. Questions of epistemology (Is there sufficient evidence, etc.), then, do not even arise.

I'm afraid what I wrote above might be a bit misleading.

If you adopt the second approach to dark matter, you are indeed behaving like a good constructive empiricist in this particular instance. That doesn't make you a constructive empiricist, though, as least as van Fraassen presents his program. If, at the same time as you deny the reality of dark matter, you assert that there is sufficient reason to believe in photons, electrons, and quarks, say, then you are no constructivist empiricist.

The constructive empiricist maintains -- across the board -- that there is never sufficient warrant to believe in the reality of any unobservable theoretical posit. We are never justified in claiming that a scientific theory containing unobservables is true (as that term is commonly understood). Science cannot deliver knowledge of unobservable reality.
 
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I find it hard to make sense of this, with all due respect. Are you suggesting that the proponents of ID do not sincerely believe that, for example, our universe being created is a better explanation than whatever atheistic science has to say on the matter? They do not sincerely believe that the origin of the cell -- in all its dizzying complexity -- is better explained by intelligent design than natural forces?

As I've noted numerous times, these are not positions I endorse myself, but they do not strike me as ludicrous positions, moreover I see no reason to doubt the sincerity of the proponents.
I agree. I don't find ID inherently preposterous or anything like that, and I do not doubt that there are, in fact, plenty of people who sincerely believe in that, or in something very similar.

That said, when it comes to those who post about ID on the interwebs... I don't know. There are exceptions, of course, but in most instances I honestly get the impression that the poster does not actually believe what they are saying. It's almost as though they're just doing a job ("simply following orders") that they're not fully committed to. And whatever it is that they are doing, it may not even necessarily be tied in to the agenda behind ID proper.

Their writings follow a pattern: They start or enter a discussion by introducing ideas from ID. They feign total ignorance of the history of ID. Over time, it becomes clear that they know a lot more about this than they let on.

For someone who sincerely believes in something, that a pretty weird way to go about it, don't you think? And it doesn't seem like they're employing some sort of socratic method, or playing devil's advocate, or anything like that. It just seems devious and I generally try to avoid delving to deeply because I find it both frustrating and a little bit depressing.

I'd say it goes both ways. Any suggestion to the dogmatic defenders of scientism that the cell, for example-- in all its unbelievable complexity -- did not come about through natural forces incurs a "block". It's not a reasonable suggestion to be entertained even if not believed, it's not plausible even in the slightest, and you'd have to be some kind of brainwashed hillbilly to think otherwise.

It will not even be allowed to be placed on the table for consideration. The end. Period. Full stop. Now puh-LEASE stop this silliness and let's get back to Lawrence Krauss (or whoever) with his sensible and properly scientific theories of multiple universes where pigs can fly, Lawrence Krauss is the sexiest man who ever lived, and Scotland wins the World Cup seven times in a row.

Yeah, it definitely goes both ways. When considering the multitude of really long discussions about ID on the internet, I find it hard to suss the motivations of any of the participants.

As an aside, it's funny that some might fault you (and others), say, for obsessing over the "semantics", when they're doing much the same thing, in a very different manner and about something else entirely, elsewhere. But isn't that really what a discussion is? I mean, once you get past trivial "facts" and whatnots.

I've always regarded Stanley Cavell's work highly, and particularly, Must We Mean What We Say? Cavell's background was mostly Analytic--I believe he was a student of Austin--but he was one of the first to bridge Anglo-Analytic thought with the much despised Continentals. Specifically, he made deconstruction palatable for those who seemingly have an almost visceral disgust for it, those who are gouging their eyes out at the mere thought of the impossibility of meaning.

Tying that back to ID: yeah, it's a con(spiracy)--and outside of that, I don't find the ideas themselves compelling or convincing-- and it definitely ain't for me. Unfortunately, when you look behind almost anything, you're not gonna find much that's totally free from politics, scandal, back-stabbing and all sorts of chicanery. So you try to work with what is isolable only to find that the context-free or context-independent is either empty or essentially leg-less, owing to a total absence of friction.
 
I've always regarded Stanley Cavell's work highly, and particularly, Must We Mean What We Say? Cavell's background was mostly Analytic--I believe he was a student of Austin--but he was one of the first to bridge Anglo-Analytic thought with the much despised Continentals. Specifically, he made deconstruction palatable for those who seemingly have an almost visceral disgust for it, those who are gouging their eyes out at the mere thought of the impossibility of meaning.

Never even heard of the fella, but I just checked, and the local library carries it. Thanks for the tip!
 
As an aside, it's funny that some might fault you (and others), say, for obsessing over the "semantics", when they're doing much the same thing, in a very different manner and about something else entirely, elsewhere. But isn't that really what a discussion is? I mean, once you get past trivial "facts" and whatnots.

I'm not sure if this relates at all to what you had in my mind when you wrote the above, however, for what's it's worth, I'll respond with this for all to reflect on:

Other members are invited to search the site for the key words "the scientific method", as I did recently. What you will find time and time again is the hyperconfident upbraiding what they see as the hopelessly deluded (UFO fans, ID advocates, and other untouchables) for their abject ignorance and for their failure to both understand and follow The Scientific Method.

Perhaps in this thread I may have provided some reason for thinking there is no such thing, or there are a million such things (as many as there are scientists), or that there is such a thing but it's completely useless. A quick reminder of what two prominent scientists said . . .

  • Percy Bridgman: [ . . . ] What appears to [the working scientist] as the essence of the situation is that he is not consciously following any prescribed course of action, but feels complete freedom to utilize any method or device whatever which in the particular situation before him seems likely to yield the correct answer. In his attack on his specific problem he suffers no inhibitions of precedent or authority, but is completely free to adopt any course that his ingenuity is capable of suggesting to him. No one standing on the outside can predict what the individual scientist will do or what method he will follow. In short, science is what scientists do, and there are as many scientific methods as there are individual scientists." --Reflections of a Physicist

    Peter Medawar: Most scientists receive no tuition in scientific method, but those who have been instructed perform no better as scientists than those who have not. Of what other branch of learning can it be said that it gives its proficients no advantage; that it need not be taught or, if taught, need not be learned?


If there's any merit to these views, then what's happening is that the hyperconfident are upbraiding the untouchables for their ignorance, urging them to educate themselves on -- as the hyperconfident have already done -- and to follow something that either:

* does not exist
* exists but is useless
* exists in as many protean forms as there are scientists ("Er, which one exactly would you like me to follow?")




In a similar vein, the reason I find Youtube science educators like Forrest Valkai, Professor Dave, and AronRa so unbearable is not that that they do their best to educate people about science and make a few blunders in the process. That's not it at all. It's the hyperconfidence, the arrogance, the condescension, the dehumanization of their adversaries ("They're all charlatans and liars"), the complete lack of intellectual humility.

Almost every presentation of theirs takes the same form:


* An enemy of science is identified -- usually an ID proponent, a Creationist, an evolution denier, or some other untouchable (maybe even a philosopher)

* AronRa (and company) snorts contemptuously at the appalling ignorance of this hillbilly charlatan

* He then proceeds to "educate" his audience with a presentation that is no less preposterous, no less woefully ignorant, no less agonizing than that which he is condemning.
 
It's just semantics (part MCMHDKYRIII)
------------------------------------------

Aron Ra debates some dude no one has ever heard of . . .




Aron Ra takes the stage around 29:00 anxious to expose his opponent's woeful incompetence . . .

29:15: "I apologize that so much of this presentation is going to have to be on semantics it seems, because it's my opinion that my opponent is at a disadvantage in that he doesn't really understand the words that he is using. [ . . . ] The term Darwinism means something different here in the US than it means in the UK. An American scientist wouldn't use the word Darwinism at all.

31:05: "So when he says the word Darwinism to me I'm hearing what they knew in the 1800s, and nothing more than that."




You really do have to wonder about some people, eh? A comment such as this, immediately after warning his audience of his adversary's semantic ineptitude, is just . . . what can one say . . . asking for it!

Oh well, it took me about two minutes to find this . . .



So what is "Darwinism"? This simple and profoundly beautiful theory, the theory of evolution by natural selection, has been so often misunderstood, and even on occasion maliciously misstated, that it is worth pausing for a moment to set out its essential points and claims. We'll be coming back to these repeatedly as we consider the evidence for each.

In essence, the modern theory of evolution is easy to grasp. It can be summarized in a single (albeit slightly long) sentence: Life on earth evolved gradually beginning with one primitive species--perhaps a self-replicating molecule--that lived more than 3.5 billion years ago; it then branched out over time, throwing off many new and diverse species; and the mechanism for most (but not all) of evolutionary change is natural selection.

- "Why Evolution is True", Jerry A. Coyne, p3


The modern theory of evolution is still called "Darwinism," despite having gone well beyond what Darwin first proposed (he knew nothing, for example, about DNA or mutations). This kind of eponymy is unusual in science: we don't call classical physics "Newtonism" or relativity "Einsteinism." Yet Darwin was so correct, and accomplished so much in The Origin, that for many people evolutionary biology has become synonymous with his name. I'll sometimes use the term "Darwinism" throughout this book, but keep on mind that what I mean is "modern evolutionary theory.

- op. cit., note 1, p235



. . . and, eventually, to the full hierarchical model and its profound departure from the exclusively organismal accounts of conventional Darwinism

- "Punctuated Equilibrium", S. J. Gould, p6



I'm going to watch some Laurel and Hardy now before bed.
 
Note also, Aron Ra immediately proceeds (31:00 - 33:00) to explain to his audience that his barely literate adversary, once again, doesn't know what he's talking about. Darwin's original theory has subsequently been "extended", other ideas have "contributed" to it, and have been "integrated". There has been no challenge to it except from toothless Kentucky hillbillies.

It's the old "united front" propaganda line. Nothing to see here, folks. All is well in Darwinism, oops, I mean the neo-Darwinian modern sexy super-duper extended no-flies-in-this-ointment synthesis.

Readers are left to ponder how Gould's "profound departure" (see post above) is to be reconciled with all this. A typo perhaps? A secret penchant for moonshine and banjos?
 
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Ax, You and Parm are both well read in Phil of Sci, so I may have to sit on the sidelines for a while with this thread and just try to keep up. Occasionally I may ask for clarification. E.g. when one speaks of a challenge to evolutionary theory, it is helpful to ask what part. The bucolic banjo players specifically target speciation (we are divinely created not the great-grandchildren of monkeys, by gum!). IOW they direct their gap-toothed sneers at macroevolution while grudgingly acknowledging well-observed instances of microevolution, like darkening beetles. Punked Eek, otoh, challenged Darwin's (and Wallace's) slow and steady version (phyletic gradualism) with something quite different, rapid and infrequent cladogenesis. Calling the present body of theory Darwinism does seem silly, rather like calling modern physics Galileanism.
 
Ax, You and Parm are both well read in Phil of Sci, so I may have to sit on the sidelines for a while with this thread and just try to keep up. Occasionally I may ask for clarification. E.g. when one speaks of a challenge to evolutionary theory, it is helpful to ask what part. The bucolic banjo players specifically target speciation (we are divinely created not the great-grandchildren of monkeys, by gum!). IOW they direct their gap-toothed sneers at macroevolution while grudgingly acknowledging well-observed instances of microevolution, like darkening beetles. Punked Eek, otoh, challenged Darwin's (and Wallace's) slow and steady version (phyletic gradualism) with something quite different, rapid and infrequent cladogenesis. Calling the present body of theory Darwinism does seem silly, rather like calling modern physics Galileanism.
Quite. “Darwinism” is a label creationists like, however, for a number of reasons. It gives them a nice Aunt Sally to attack, since they can then represent some of these later concepts as evidence that “Darwinism is in trouble” , which can be used rhetorically to suggest the theory of evolution is in trouble - specially useful when addressing audiences of like-minded mouth-breathing yokels, to reinforce their opinions. They also like to conflate Darwin’s scientific idea with social Darwinism, opening the opportunity to attack evolution for leading to Nazi ideology (Godwin’s Law putting in a cameo appearance at this point) etc etc. So all good stuff for a Two Minutes Hate session, before they pass round the collection plate. :biggrin:
 
Ax, You and Parm are both well read in Phil of Sci, so I may have to sit on the sidelines for a while with this thread and just try to keep up.

Thanks, but Ax strikes me as way more conversant in a lot this stuff--I think I'm very good at presenting the appearance of knowing.

For instance, I first came across Cavell by way of Vicki Hearne's Adam's Task: Calling Animals by Name. An excellent book and "heavy" (or "heady", maybe?), in a manner of speaking, but I feel like I ought to have come across him doing philosophy proper. And despite having a solid university background (sadly, being a student was the best paying job I've ever had), my method for devising a... course of study, I guess, seems to be derived more from my approach to music and record collecting than anything else. For instance, I've long considered the Nurse with Wound list to be not unlike the full syllabus for an undergraduate degree in... something.
 
The big difference between quantum and classical mechanics, surely, is that in QM the individual outcomes of interactions cannot be exactly predicted, which is unlike classical mechanics. Aesthetic discomfort at this lay behind Einstein’s famous (and so far apparently wrong*) remark that God does not play dice.

...
Aesthetically speaking, unlike Einstein I have always rather liked the principle of indeterminacy. The notion that the more detail you know of one thing the less you know of another seems not unreasonable, and the idea of limits to what you can know is rather comforting, I find, rather than the reverse. And I’ve relied on QM concepts long enough in chemistry that they don’t bother me.

Do you think this aesthetic discomfort--which is more like aesthetic terror for many--is innate, or something learned? I'm inclined to think the latter. It strikes me as a maladaptive trait, in a sense; moreover, one generally doesn't encounter it in children.

This isn't a great analogy, but hopefully it makes some kind of sense. People generally don't read a book cover to cover in one sitting. They put it down and return to it some time later. One should feel curious about what comes next and anticipate getting there eventually, but this delayed resolution or closure shouldn't provoke angst or some sort of discomfort.

That's sort of what I was getting at by saying that I find it no less intuitive than classical mechanics. (And, again, it becomes less so with more exhaustive consideration.) It accords with lived reality. Aren't most peoples' live characterized by some considerable degree of strangeness (not that strangeness) and messiness?
 
Do you think this aesthetic discomfort--which is more like aesthetic terror for many--is innate, or something learned? I'm inclined to think the latter. It strikes me as a maladaptive trait, in a sense; moreover, one generally doesn't encounter it in children.

This isn't a great analogy, but hopefully it makes some kind of sense. People generally don't read a book cover to cover in one sitting. They put it down and return to it some time later. One should feel curious about what comes next and anticipate getting there eventually, but this delayed resolution or closure shouldn't provoke angst or some sort of discomfort.

That's sort of what I was getting at by saying that I find it no less intuitive than classical mechanics. (And, again, it becomes less so with more exhaustive consideration.) It accords with lived reality. Aren't most peoples' live characterized by some considerable degree of strangeness (not that strangeness) and messiness?
Well yes I supposed the conviction that everything can be exactly predicted is a learned thing. But this drive is an aspect of the curiosity that drives people to explore nature - to do science - so it's not a bad thing. It was part of Einstein's motivation, evidently.

But indeed I find the uncertainty principle conveys an idea of a sort of humility about what we can know, which I find quite appealing. Though of course it is not just a limit of what we can know about a system, it is a limit on how much about the system is defined at all.

Your point about getting there slowly is a slightly different one, related not to quantum uncertainty but to the imperfection of our models, which in principle can gradually be reduced as knowledge advances. I think that's how most thoughtful scientific people look at science. Though some aggressive popularisers pretend seem to claim an inappropriate degree of dogmatic certainty (Krauss et al - should that be Krass, perhaps ;)?)
 
I think that's how most thoughtful scientific people look at science. Though some aggressive popularisers pretend seem to claim an inappropriate degree of dogmatic certainty (Krauss et al - should that be Krass, perhaps ;)?)

Broadening the scope of this discussion somewhat, I really don't axocanth's concerns are overstated. These guys are pretty influential. There's a serious crisis in education in the US, and science is but one aspect of it. Our critical thinking skills, and even just basic literacy, are seriously compromised. I offer just two words--well, a name, actually: Joe Rogan. If you're not all that familiar with Rogan, consider yourself lucky. I believe his audience is almost entirely American--his audience of 15 million on Spotify alone. The total number of regular listeners is believed to be much, much larger, and it's comprised overwhelmingly of white males, who largely subsist on an all-meat diet (seriously). Rogan is the humaniform embodiment of pure misinformation and disinformation.
 
Broadening the scope of this discussion somewhat, I really don't axocanth's concerns are overstated. These guys are pretty influential. There's a serious crisis in education in the US, and science is but one aspect of it. Our critical thinking skills, and even just basic literacy, are seriously compromised. I offer just two words--well, a name, actually: Joe Rogan. If you're not all that familiar with Rogan, consider yourself lucky. I believe his audience is almost entirely American--his audience of 15 million on Spotify alone. The total number of regular listeners is believed to be much, much larger, and it's comprised overwhelmingly of white males, who largely subsist on an all-meat diet (seriously). Rogan is the humaniform embodiment of pure misinformation and disinformation.
Hmm. Criticising the way science is presented by a handful of crude American popularisers on YouTube is one thing. Tarring the whole of real science with that brush is quite another. And none of that is any kind of justification for claiming ID deserves to be treated as science. That's just ridiculous - and possibly dishonest.

As for the Joe Rogan stuff, I can't comment on educational standards in the USA.
 
Broadening the scope of this discussion somewhat, I really don't axocanth's concerns are overstated. These guys are pretty influential. There's a serious crisis in education in the US, and science is but one aspect of it. Our critical thinking skills, and even just basic literacy, are seriously compromised. I offer just two words--well, a name, actually: Joe Rogan. If you're not all that familiar with Rogan, consider yourself lucky. I believe his audience is almost entirely American--his audience of 15 million on Spotify alone. The total number of regular listeners is believed to be much, much larger, and it's comprised overwhelmingly of white males, who largely subsist on an all-meat diet (seriously). Rogan is the humaniform embodiment of pure misinformation and disinformation.

I offer a few more names, rising above Youtube to the highest echelons of science itself: Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Eugenie Scott, Jerry Coyne -- all of whom are the "humaniform embodiment of pure misinformation and disinformation" if you ask me.

Their numbers may be few, but their influence is enormous. Alas, they're also the ones that make the most noise, drowning out the voices of far more intelligent and sensible scientists.

Again, I emphasize that the above critique pertains not to when they're speaking on their own professional areas of expertise, but -- as they frequently do -- when they step back from their own bailiwicks and begin to wax lyrically on science as a whole: what is it, how does it differ from ID, say. what is evidence, what is a theory, what methods do scientists use, etc., etc..

When will people learn: You simply cannot talk intelligently about such matters without some background in the philosophy of science.

The result is the propagation of misinformation on an industrial scale, untruths, exaggerations, distortions, and perhaps most of all, sloganeering and propaganda -- vacuous proclamations such as "We have evidence and the bad guys don't", "There is no evidence for [insert something Richard Dawkins doesn't like here]", and "Scientists go where the evidence leads."

How we would even begin to appraise a claim such as "Scientists go where the evidence leads" for truth or falsity is left as another exercise to the reader lol.
 
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re Aron Ra vid (post 426). See 41:30 !!!!!!!!!

"If you accept microevolution you have no excuse to reject macroevolution because it's a continuation of the same process."


Gould et al, of course, do not reject macroevolution. They flatly deny, however, that it is a "continuation of the same process".

Aron Ra is either abysmally ignorant of this alternative -- and rival -- view, or else decides that it's not worth mentioning. Take your pick! Neither alternative inspires confidence.

(My money is on the former)
 
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Another example of something that is grotesquely misleading (same vid as above):

Aron Ra 43:50: "There is no actual fact that contradicts [cf. falsifies] evolution."


What Aron Ra says, I submit, is true, but grotesquely misleading for the following reason: It implies that there could be some fact which contradicts, and thus falsifies, [the theory of] evolution, whatever you take that to be.

Philosophers of science, once again, have long known that (typical) scientific theories are not contradicted by any observable facts, whether actual or conceivable.

Skeptics are invited to propose their suggestions of what observable fact -- actual or conceivable -- would contradict general relativity, say, or the theory of evolution, or Newtonian mechanics. Or choose another theory.

Would a planet with a circular orbit contradict Newtonian theory or GR? Would a planet with a square orbit contradict Newtonian mechanics or GR? Would a planet that etches out "Aron Ra Should Be Shot at Dawn" in the sky contradict Newtonian theory or GR?

If you think it does, please state the contradiction. If we take, for example, Newtonian theory to consist of the three laws of motion and the inverse square law of gravitation, how does the observation of a planet with a square orbit, say, contradict the theory?
 
For readers' consideration, I quote from the abovementioned David Stove. I have this on a PDF file so if you want more . . .

(all emphasis in original)



It will perhaps be said, in defence of Darwinism, that many and enormous crimes have been committed in the name of every large and influential body of ideas bearing on human life. Whether that is true or not, I do not know. But even if it is, there are great and obvious differences, among such bodies of ideas, in how easily and naturally they amount to incitement to the commission of crimes. Confucianism, for example, or Buddhism, do not appear to incite their adherents to crime easily or often. National Socialism, by contrast, and likewise Marxism, do easily and naturally hold out such incitements to their adherents, and indeed (as is obvious) owe a good deal of their attractiveness to this very fact.

It is impossible to deny that, in this respect, Darwinism has a closer affinity with National Socialism or Marxism than with Confucianism or Buddhism. Darwin told the world that a 'struggle for life', a 'struggle for existence', a 'battle for life', is always going on among the members of every species. Although this proposition was at the time novel and surprising, an immense number of people accepted it. Now, will any rational person believe that accepting this proposition would have no effect, or only randomly varying effects, on people's attitudes towards their own conspecifics? No. Will any rational person believe that accepting this novel proposition would tend to improve people's attitudes to their conspecifics - for example, would tend to make them less selfish, or less inclined to domineering behaviour, than they had been before they accepted it? No.

Quite the contrary, it is perfectly obvious that accepting Darwin's theory of a universal struggle for life must tend to strengthen whatever tendencies people had beforehand to selfishness and domineering behaviour towards their fellow humans. Hence it must tend to make them worse than they were before, and more likely to commit crimes: especially crimes of rapacity, or of cruelty, or of dominance for the sake of dominance.

These considerations are exceedingly obvious. There was therefore never any excuse for the indignation and surprise which Darwinians and neo-Darwinians have nearly always expressed, whenever their theory is accused of being a morally subversive one. For the same reason there is, and always was, every justification for the people, beginning with Darwin's contemporaries, who made that accusation against the theory. Darwin had done his best, (as I said in Essay II above), to separate the theory of evolution from the matrix of murderous ideas in which previously it had always been set. But in fact, since the theory says what it does, there is a limit, and a limit easily reached, to how much can be done in the way of such a separation. The Darwinian theory of evolution is an incitement to crime: that is simply a fact.

It is perfectly possible, of course, and indeed it constantly happens, that publishing a certain proposition is an incitement to crime, and yet that the proposition is a true one. If a large amount of money, or drugs, or firearms, is unprotected at a certain place, and I publish this truth, then I incite to crime: indeed, 'the greater the truth, the greater the incitement'. This is merely an instance of what every sensible person knows: that there are truths which morally ought not to be told to children, to the moribund, to people whose sanity hangs by a thread, or to the criminally-inclined. So I do not mention Darwinism's being an incitement to crime as a reason for thinking that it is false. I mention it as a fact worth knowing, which is almost never stated, but is, very often indeed, wilfully concealed even by people who know it perfectly well.
Is the whole of this a quote from Stove?

How much of it do you agree with?

Are we having a discussion with you here, or with Stove? If you want us to answer Stove, can you get him on here?
 
axocanth:

I get it that you think you're trying to be edgy and provocative. But when you start calling those who are kind enough to indulge you "idiotic" and dismissing their thoughts as "jawdropping stupid remarks", your act starts to grate.

Remember that this sort of thing is what saw you exit this forum in a very short time, last time you were here. Are you the guy who likes to barge in, kick up a fuss and then make the Grand Clomping Exit? If not, you might want to up your level of cordial politeness.

You can do that, I hope.
 
Well, James doesn't think so. He tells us that our understanding and knowledge of "underlying truth" amounts to none. (see post 386 above) -- "We don't have any access to unobservable reality, whatever it might be."

What's his problem?
With this, are you trying to troll billvon, or myself, or both?

If you think there's a problem with my position, it would be better for you to state the problem and try to discuss it with me like an adult. You might even try waiting for me to reply before going off half cocked and referencing my name in every post like an impatient child seeking attention.
 
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