Hey red sox, you really should jump into this conversation more proactively. I know from other topics (political ones) that you know what you're talking about, and I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.
And anyways, if "I think therefor I am" is false, then I certainly have nothing to do with truth on any level, so this conversation is absolutely and completely without merit.
"You" might not. Your body might. And "you" might not "think" truthfully, but you may approach it willfully. And there's a difference between understanding the self as a useful construction and providing it with immediate ontological necessity.
But this is all abstract and not particularly relevant. The central point is this: that if you really care about truth, "positing" truth as true is simply disingenuous. All philosophically-minded people have to ask two difficult questions eventually: what grounds truth? and what is the value of truth assuming it can be grounded?
However, they are constructs and therefor a level removed from the base reality. The construct of god is relevance, however the reality of god is not (at least as defined).
What is a "construct," and what is "base reality"? Logic is in many respects more base than sense experience, as one can always be doubted and the other can never be doubted. The scientific method is also itself a construct, one which approaches the world through a very specific lens.
And I never once claimed that only quantitative scientific inquiry is relevant, just that anything that is relevant that isn't a construct falls under the jurisdiction of the scientific method because of the way the scientific method is defined.
This is the snag here. Could you clarify?
You are however, missing my point. If the universe does not adhere to universal laws (which may change according to other, higher level laws, who knows) then it is impossible to discover truth outside of a single instant, that being the instant you are in.
Not quite. It would be impossible to discover objective truth, but perspectival truths would certainly be on the table. This, incidentally, is where I stand: that science is a perspective, and that it can provide scientific truths, but that these truths are no "more" or "less" true simply because they are scientific.
How on earth does that follow in a way that doesn't also conclude god has have a god of its own, that has a god of its own, ad infinitum?
...This is an entirely separate argument. This would be relevant if I postulated a God; since God was assumed to be nonexistent, I'm not sure of the relevance here.
So again, what compels the universe to be rationally intelligible without God? If you posit this as true, then it's true; but this is also true of God and any other proposition imaginable. If you care about the truth of the matter, then you won't simply assume what you're trying to prove.
--
Kobe XX
http://tinyurl.com/7n46st9