From xod@sixgirls.org Wed Mar 21 13:38:17 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: xod@shiva.sixgirls.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_0_4); 21 Mar 2001 21:38:16 -0000 Received: (qmail 96912 invoked from network); 21 Mar 2001 21:37:58 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by l8.egroups.com with QMQP; 21 Mar 2001 21:37:58 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO shiva.sixgirls.org) (206.252.141.232) by mta1 with SMTP; 21 Mar 2001 21:37:57 -0000 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by shiva.sixgirls.org (8.11.0/8.11.1) with ESMTP id f2LLcuv05727 for ; Wed, 21 Mar 2001 16:38:56 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 16:38:56 -0500 (EST) To: Subject: Re: [lojban] Objective Reality & krici (was: Random lojban questions/annoyanc... In-Reply-To: <44.c4c090b.27ea41f9@aol.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: Invent Yourself On Wed, 21 Mar 2001 pycyn@aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 3/20/2001 8:09:36 PM Central Standard Time, > xod@sixgirls.org writes: > > > > , I return to my original challenge: Show > > me a case of a belief without any evidence, for commonly used definitions > > of "evidence". > > > > Now, xod's point may be simply what it says on the outside, that there is no > belief for which there is not evidence, not anything about how one comes to > believe or what constitutes a belief, but an empirical claim about beliefs in > general. I don't know how one would go about proving such a claim. As I > have said, there is probably no belief so bizarre but that something could be > taken as evidence for it, maybe even something we accept as true (look at all > the things that have been taken as evidence for the existence of God -- or > for God's non-existence, for that matter). I'm not sure that I would want to > buy into this, especially if what one came up with -- for "There is a unicorn > in the garden," say -- is not something that the claimant did not propose. > Nor would I want to accept something whose connection to the claim was also > not something the claimant could explain. I think that the resulting claim, > for everything thing that x believes there a true claim that x would make and > which is plausibly connected to the belief as support, would be hard to prove > and might, in fact, be easy to disprove. I believe (let us imagine) that I > have squared the circle. The evidence is a number of scribbled pages which I > claim constitute a proof of the construction I offer. The claim is plausibly > connected to the belief, but it is false. Does it constitute evidence? If > yes, then we have to drop the "true" part above. And then again, the whole > become trivial: the hoof prints that no one else can find, the gouges that no > one else can see, the white hairs in the bushes, etc. are all evidence for > the unicorn in the garden, even though the claims about them are all false. > So, of course, I can fadge up some evidence, as long as it does not have to > be true. Great summary! I never claimed "good evidence", or "evidence you and I would agree to". A great many beliefs are based on evidence that I do not approve of. But they ARE based on something that is taken as evidence by the believers. And that's why krici is a meaningless term. Its true meaning is "djuno where x4 is controversial". ----- "The trees are green, since green is good for the eyes". I agreed with him, and added, that God had created cattle, since beef soups strengthen man; that he created the donkey, so that it might give man something with which to compare himself; and he had created man, to eat beef soup and not be a donkey.