Empiricism...

[WrittenFromUtopia]

...is stupid! I have a Christian friend who appeals to this worldview all the time and it drives me NUTS!!! It seems so anti-Christian to me. Anyone think the same?

 

[Puritanhead]

Yeah-- and I don't like Hegel either.

 

[Arch2k]

Originally posted by WrittenFromUtopia
...is stupid! I have a Christian friend who appeals to this worldview all the time and it drives me NUTS!!! It seems so anti-Christian to me. Anyone think the same?

It is so subjective that one cannot argue with such an unreasonable creature. I see an apple! ...Well I see an orange!

More often today, it's "I feel that such and such is the truth."

What to do with such a worldview that so often contradicts itself...

 

[Arch2k]

[Edit] double post [/Edit]

[Edited on 3-2-2006 by Jeff_Bartel]

 

[RamistThomist]

Empiricism is naive and outdated.
The main problem with it is that it cannot be empirically verified at the most fundamental level, thus undercutting its thrust.

[Edited on 3--2-06 by Draught Horse]

 

[WrittenFromUtopia]

For example, I asked a Christian friend of mine if he believed in dragons (a topic familiar to this board recently)... and he replied with "Well, I've never seen one...." I flipped out.

 

[Vytautas]

Sense experience would have us believe that things are in motion. If something moves, then it moves from a point to another point. Between any two points are an infinite number of points. Some would think that the object must travel an infinite distance in order to move. However, a point is that which has no part so they are dimensionless which means they do not measure distance. So between any two points is a finite distance. On the other hand, before an object moves to a certain location it must travel half that distance and then half that distance again and so on to infinity. However, if you add up all the half distances, the number converges to a finite amount. It would be the sum as it goes from one to infinity of one over two to the nth power.

 

[RamistThomist]

Things that cannot be empirically verifedL
Causation
Mind (although they would cop out and say it is a bunch of chemicals)
justice

 

[Vytautas]

Some equate the mind with the brain which means that means that the brain thinks. How does an electro-chemical event cause the brain to think? They would reply that a computer is a physical entity and it could have within it propositions which are like thoughts. It is analogous that a computer which is physical can produce thought as someone types sentences into a word processor and on the other hand, a physical brain that thinks. The reason that a computer has intelligible words within it is because of the intelligent input of people. So how could a computer produce thought on its own? It would seem that the analogy is that physical components which push and pull each other can produce thought as much as the number seven can weigh five pounds. It is a categorical error.