LACK of evidence is not proof of an afterlife.
LACK of evidence is not proof of bigfoot.
LACK of evidence is not proof of space aliens.
LACK of evidence is not proof of a teapot in solar orbit between Earth and Mars.
In order to justifiably BELIEVE something, you must have Quantifiable positive evidence or a logically rigorous proof.
Otherwise your OPINIONS are INDISTINGUISHABLE from pure fantasy.
As much as I agree with everything you have just said, I also disagree.
Not really. You're spot on.
Okay, almost. Things kind fall apart starting with the second-to-last sentence. If I have quantifiable evidence of something's existence, then I won't "believe" it, I will know it or treat it as a given, whatever applies in the current context. By definition, "belief" is reserved for things that are taken on faith; "rigorous proof" need not apply. I don't believe that I am a human, I know I am. I don't believe that I love pizza, I know I do. On the other hand, I believe that my children love me, but unless I can tap their internal dialogue, get a read on their thoughts and feelings, I'll never truly know whether or not they do. (They do. . . . Right?)
We take many things on faith and call that faith "knowledge," perhaps without realizing it. For example, I know that the world is round. But do I? Have I seen the world while in orbit? No. Have I taken the measures and then done the calculations necessary to prove definitively (to me, at any rate, more on that later) that the world is more grapelike than pizzalike? (And for someone who loves pizza as much as I do, the flat-earth theory is beguiling.) Again, no. In literal terms, then, my knowledge that the world is round is, in fact, a form of belief. Someone took pictures, you say. Sure, but maybe those pictures were faked. Someone measured and calculated, you insist. Sure, but maybe the measures and/or calculations were flawed; maybe the person who did the work lied. I don't believe that, by the way, but there it is: belief.
We draw lines--pretty much constantly. I will believe this and call it reality because it falls in with my vision of what reality is. That idea that occupies the space on the other side of my internal line-- That's crap. Proof that the world is round is definitive to me; to the real flat-earthers, it is so much propaganda, worth naught but a snort of scorn. In the end, it is all personal perspective. We decide, consciously or un-, what is real and what is not. I know people who are 100%, can't be wrong (scream obscenities at the person who implies they are) certain that there is an entity that they call "god"--well, "God." Are you really prepared to say that they are doing no more than state an opinion?
This is where English fall flat on its face. Yes, those people whom I've mentioned are of the opinion that god exists. Yet, in their personal worldviews, they are speaking facts, not opinions. Are they wrong? Are you (for insisting that it is an opinion and not a statement of fact)? We have no easy way (that I have found) to incorporate this is true and accurate as far as I am concerned, but, depending on your interpretation of the evidence, might be for you a matter of faith and/or opinion into our proclamations of truth and reality. And even if we did, would the person who "knows" something to be as he or she knows it to be actually include it? Doing so would undermine that claim of knowledge, so . . . Picture that rabid religious nut who lives down the hall. Is he going to add that shade of meaning to his statement that "God exists"? Perhaps belief becomes knowledge if it is strong enough. No? Well, I agree with you there, but that is only my opinion.
We appear to have an ontological conflict.
Knowledge =/= Belief
Belief =/= Faith
Confidence =/= Knowledge
Knowledge = stored data
Belief = actionable hypothesis
Opinion = unjustifiable belief
Faith = unjustified 100% confidence
I believe I am human because I have reasonable, Quantifiable, demonstrable evidence.
This statement (I am human) has verifiable truth value.
I believe I love pizza because I have personal, Qualitative, private, experiential evidence.
This statement (I love pizza) has NO verifiable truth value.
A tendency to conflate Quanta and Qualia is the core of many if not most philosophical quagmires.
No, knowledge does not equal belief, but I didn't say that it did. In addition, while I made no claim that faith equals belief, I did imply that faith and belief walk hand in hand, an accurate statement, I think. What I was trying to say--unsuccessfully, it seems--about confidence and knowledge was not that they are the same, but that confidence in our beliefs can elevate--internally--those beliefs to something that we call "knowledge." In that way, we can see that while the one can affect the other, they are not synonymous in any way. Finally, while I agree with all six equations, I don't think that all of them are applicable to what I wrote.
At some level, everything filters through the individual: His or her perceptions are the sole input, and those perceptions are colored by experience. When you say that one's humanity is verifiable and that one's love of pizza is not, you are--it seems--relying on outside perceptions to determine the existence of both proof and fallacy. That is, theoretically, someone outside of myself can verify that I am human, while that same someone cannot verify that I love pizza. I would argue that either statement can be true or false depending on where you draw the line. If I did not believe in my own existence, I would have to look to others to prove that I am real, which places the verifiable truth of me in external hands. What if I didn't believe them? Anyway proof of one's own existence cannot come from outside oneself: For me to believe that you exist, I have to believe that I do; if I don't believe that I exist, there is no framework for your existence, and if I don't believe that you exist, you can't "prove" to me that I do. In that way, I it is possible for me to disbelieve in my own reality both because I have a self-disorder, for example, and because I don't trust in anything outside of myself, which I is something that I also don't trust, which . . . Contradictions all around. That my existence is "proven" in the eyes of others doesn't, given that context, make it definitively true--to me. Now if you are talking about reasonably true, that's another story.
Can I prove that I love pizza? That's a toughie. Where is the line drawn? If I go out to dinner with my friends every Friday (assuming that I, they, and _Friday_s exist), and we go to a restaurant that has a large and diverse menu, and I always (let's say 156 weeks in a row) order pizza, is that not proof that I love pizza (onion and tomato--yum!)? In the absence of proof that I am intentionally deceiving my friends into believing something that is not true, is it not reasonable to draw the line so that an external individual's empirical evidence of my love of pizza falls within the admittedly grey region of "proven fact"? And yet, proof is and can only be personal and must be recognized--to some degree--as such. Perhaps this is where "confidence" comes in: It might be argued--given the premise that we all, to some degree, form our own realities--that what each individual self is confident is real, is. The problem with that is that the nature of self is still in dispute. Neuroscientists tell us that they are able to pinpoint the areas of the brain in which aesthetics, love, and religious experience make their homes. With all that, the part of the brain in charge of sense of self remains elusive. Does that mean that there is no such thing as a "self"? In the end, nothing can be proven about anything, objectively, because at some point, those involved in the exercise have to concede that Yeah, alright, this is real and Sure, and I guess that's real, too. Maybe nothing can be proven because nothing exists--the old notion of "our lives are merely the dreams of a creator." But let me tell ya, my creator loves pizza.
I am new to the logic game. Well, not in my head, but in the real (whatever that means) world. So I might not be using the correct terms, but the logic itself is, I think, sound.
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Please critique.
delegate 777 hive to @sunlit7
Thank you, I don't feel so worthless anymore....lol
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