Originally Posted by
Etienne
1) It depends, when talking about "nature" are you referring to an "essence", if you are familiar with philosophical terms...
2) Herein lies a mistake. The lack of belief into something "else" is not necessarily an act of faith, but a lack of data that would lead to think there is something. Which is the same as the lack of belief in God for example. You might say, but it's agnosticisms and it means that you merely "don't know". But I think agnosticism taken in that sense has an underlying belief in God that is not admitted, or at least a tendency to believe. As I could very well say that I'm "don't know" whether there are giant apes living on the dark side of the moon, but I have no reason to believe there is therefore I don't believe there is. If I find a clue, but something vague, then I might say that i just "don't know".
3) Saying you cannot trust your senses or reason, means that you cannot trust anything because it's the only things that link us with the external world. So by admitting this, you admit that anything we say here is basically useless and might very well all be bunk and unrelated to reality. Every time such a topic is discussed this argument comes back, but drop it, it's the only things we can hold to, and they give practical result. If your point is that our senses and reason do not give us a good link to reality because we only have access to the "mental images" of these things, or that you say that our senses and reason are cheating us (as in an optical illusion), or that our senses and reason are completely fooling us, are three different matters, but neither of them brings us anywhere. The only thing it might do is make one not take anything as dogma and leave that small proportion of doubt (that you don't consider but is still there in case), but which is already present in the scientific method under the form of perpetual doubt and that everyone should do with their own beliefs (not meaning that you have to consider those doubts all the time, but leave the possibility of a mistake). This basically only means not to take anything as dogma, which is also precisely my point.
4) No, not at all. I do understand Aristotle's Physic, although I do not believe in it. I do understand the ontological proof of God, even though I do not believe in God.
5) The question of ontology is a question only of philosophy? Not at all, friend, not at all. Now to debate this on the conventional side of the question, we would have to get into the maze of the history of the concept of philosophy. But let's not get into this. Philosophy and theology have both been very much confused and mixed together and the conceptions a very debated subject, but saying that theology doesn't work with the ontology of God is rather strange... especially in modern times where the separation between theology (science of God) and philosophy is becoming more distinct, compared to the Middles-Ages where it was pretty much a melting pot.
6) I'm not sure I understand the part where you say "the particle was not known to exist when it's properties were worked out." What do you mean by this?
7) I do understand the whole though, and yes, science offers conceptual views of reality by working on the interactions, but what is NOT known by it's interactions? Is there anything we do not know only by it's interactions? Do I known my hand otherwise than by it's interactions with my brain? You want to know the essence of things, but that there "is" (note the "") a particular essence. This was born from the ancients who thought with the view of an immortal soul, but to talk about synthetic ontology, is going into suppositions, mostly.
8) Oh! That is bad logic! And it is bad scientific method by extension. Before using the negative proof (or lack of) you have to first build a solid empirical theory. Using the lack of negative proof to "prove" something which hasn't already been demonstrated empirically is sophism at best.
Synthetic knowledge, you understand, is "building" knowledge from a certain point, but if this this basic point, this premise is the same thing as the synthetic knowledge, it means that it's built from nothing, from no basis, let alone rational basis.
There is a mistake in your understanding of my statement. I am not saying that "unless there is a physical basis for belief then there is nothing that should prompt belief", I am saying that "there is nothing that prompts my belief [in God]".
