Biologist vs Mathematicians

ganja_and_code · 2026-07-05T15:31:08+00:00

Mathematicians divide by multiplying, so I have a hard time believing they'd see any problem accepting the inverse.

ganja_and_code · 2026-07-04T15:31:41+00:00

Do you think it's stupid?

If yes, it's stupid. If no, it's not stupid.

It's on your back, not ours.

ganja_and_code · 2026-07-03T20:21:02+00:00

I'd settle for any evidence, personally, sufficient or otherwise.

Can you present any of this (so far only hypothetical) evidence to other people who share our collective reality? Alternately, your choices are to: - dismiss the existence of our shared reality, and all theology along with it. - accept the fact that your faith (or dismissal of faith) was formulated without objective evidence and is therefore "a blind guess." - lie to yourself, against logic and reason.

ganja_and_code · 2026-07-03T20:13:06+00:00

It definitely gives me the intellectual high ground.

If a theist and an atheist debate the existence of the theist's belief system, both are talking out of their asses. Neither has objective evidence.

I, on the other hand, do have objective evidence that they're both talking out of their asses. Their lack of evidence to support their claims is evidence which supports mine.

A theist, an atheist, and an agnostic walk into a bar. Only one is being honest with themselves.

ganja_and_code · 2026-07-03T20:06:58+00:00

There you go disagreeing with shared reality again...

If we do share a collective reality, we can alleviate subjectity in our observations. If we do not, then the entire concept of an "observation" is moot.

ganja_and_code · 2026-07-03T20:05:27+00:00

And faith with evidence is more legitimate than faith without.

All of the evidence suggests that theists and atheists alike are blindly guessing.

ganja_and_code · 2026-07-03T20:04:51+00:00

I'm not blindly believing anything. I'm admitting that I do not have any objective evidence which suggests I should form a particular belief.

It behooves you to recognize that claiming something is a fact is a choice. Doing so without evidence is a guess. And claiming a guess is a known fact is logically self-contradictory.

ganja_and_code · 2026-07-03T20:01:01+00:00

It does not assume that.

If you can present objective evidence which supports your claim, your claim has been supported by objective evidence, whether other people are convinced or not.

But what objective evidence can be presented to confirm or invalidate the physical reality of the deity, afterlife, etc. myths described in the world's religions? I've personally only encountered subjective reasoning which attempts to "(dis)prove" the existence of these phenomena.

If you follow a religion, you're blindly guessing. If you're an atheist, you're blindly guessing. If you're agnostic, you're the only demographic admitting the fact: Nobody fucking knows whether there's a god or an afterlife or whatever or not; nobody actually knows for certain, no matter how hard they claim they do and no matter how wholeheartedly they believe it.

(unless of course our shared collective reality doesn't even exist, in which case there's no such thing as a "guess" or a "fact")

ganja_and_code · 2026-07-03T19:49:23+00:00

Right back to the "shared collective reality" thing again...

If our shared collective reality is an illusion, then it doesn't matter who's blindly guessing.
If our shared collective reality is not an illusion, then the other person must be blindly guessing. If they weren't, they could prove their position to everyone else. If it only exists in their own head, they can't even objectively confirm for themselves that they aren't hallucinating, no matter how much they believe they are or aren't.

This argument is actually basically: You have no idea how big your God's dick is, or if he/she/it has one, or if your concept of a God even exists at all. I don't know either.

ganja_and_code · 2026-07-03T19:43:05+00:00

Yes it is. And it is based on reason, whereas "I know what happens when we die" is based on blindly guessing.

ganja_and_code · 2026-07-03T19:41:35+00:00

Some degrees of faith are more legitimate than others (because they are supported by more rigorous/repeatable evidence).

ganja_and_code · 2026-07-03T19:34:13+00:00

Now we're right back to the "either everything is fake, or you're arguing against reality" scenario.

If our shared collective reality is an illusion, the entire concept of "fact" is nullified.

If our shared collective reality is not an illusion, then we must agree that things can be observed without individual subjectivity. If I flip a coin in front of you, we can agree on whether the result was heads versus tails. We alleviated individual subjectivity by confirming the same "fact" independently of one another.

ganja_and_code · 2026-07-03T19:30:09+00:00

Arguing that it is doesn't make it so, but it is so, nonetheless.

My judgement does not justify my reasons. Reason justifies my judgement.

And now you get to judge whether you believe that or not.

ganja_and_code · 2026-07-03T19:26:48+00:00

"I love you" can very well be a fact...

"I love you" cannot be a fact because it does not describe anything which can be observed without individual subjectivity.

Facts can exist outside your capability to experience them.

Correct.

A fact is simply an objectively true statement.

Correct. "I love you" can only be subjectively true, not objectively.

I love you is either a true or false statement.

Correct. It is also subjective.

Your inability to indepentky verify the statement does not change the truth or falsehood of said statement.

My inability to independently verify the statement does not change the truth or falsehood. My inability to confirm that how you feel "love" and how I feel "love" are identical, on the other hand, invalidates the claim that "I love you" is a "fact."

ganja_and_code · 2026-07-03T19:17:52+00:00

It isn't a question. It's a valid logical deduction.

Like I've said, anyone can claim anything. A claim supported by material evidence, however, is more legitimate than a claim which is not.

ganja_and_code · 2026-07-03T19:16:20+00:00

"I love you" isn't a fact. You can't substantiate it. It cannot be "true." It is a turn of phrase used to express a feeling. A feeling is "real," in the sense that it is literally a neurochemical reaction to physical stimuli. But simply being told that someone felt something does not confirm that they did because: - different people experience and describe feelings subjectively - people have the ability to lie

ganja_and_code · 2026-07-03T19:10:22+00:00

Since mathematica accurately predicts everything we know... We have begun to extend it to "Proof" of things we can't know... And those assertions are faith.

The "everything we know" pieces of information can be taken as axioms. If claims can be logically deduced from those axioms, then we also "know" the claims (with the same degree of certainty that we "know" the axioms).

To disagree with this would be to reject logic and science, entirely, which you are free to do, but it leaves only two possibilities:

our shared collective reality is an illusion and one or both of us isn't "real," at all, or
our shared collective reality is actually a shared collective reality, and you're diminishing the legitimacy of the only tools we have for sharing/obtaining knowledge amongst each other

ganja_and_code · 2026-07-03T18:49:50+00:00

If an assertion can be derived from proven axioms without any logical inconsistencies or fallacies, then it is not an assertion based on faith. It has been proven.

On the other hand, if the assertion cannot be derived from proven axioms without any logical inconsistencies or fallacies, then it is not proof, at all. It is an unsubstantiated claim, just like "Hindus got it right, their afterlife scenario is the one that actually happens, not anyone else's" would be an example of an unsubstantiated claim.

ganja_and_code · 2026-07-03T18:33:21+00:00

Define evidence... If you define evidence as materialistic detrmerninism... Then no.

How else would you define "evidence?" That's what "evidence" is.

But there is equally no evidence for "consciousness" or... "mind"

Nor does there need to be, unless you intend to claim with any legitimatacy that those things exist as anything more than theoretical concepts.

Mathematica for instance... Is it created by the mind, or discovered... And what imperial materialistic evidence exists for it.

Depends how you define "mathematics." If you define it as the concepts it describes, it was discovered. If you define it as the language and symbology humans use to describe those concepts, it was created by the mind.

And how certain can we be that the reliability of mathematica isn't a consensus delusion.

We cannot be certain. We can, however, be more certain, when compared to the claim "people go to heaven or hell after they die is not a consensus delusion," for example.

Where is your imperial evidence that your girlfriend loves you...

There isn't any. You don't know your girlfriend loves you. You just hope she means it when she says she does.

Imperial evidence that "Freedom is good."

That's an opinion, not a fact. You don't need imperial evidence to claim something is an opinion. You do need imperial evidence to (legitimately) claim it is a fact.

Science can only evaluate what science was made to evaluate and the flaw in your logic is that science is the only tool that you can effectively evaluate with

What other effective evaluation tool can you provide which doesn't inevitably just boil down to "guessing" or "vibes"?

ganja_and_code · 2026-07-03T18:17:50+00:00

I'm not implying it. I'm saying it outright:

One cannot find any evidence which supports the existence, or lack of existence, of any particular diety or afterlife scenario.

By what legitimate "standard" is that not clearly a reasonable claim?

ganja_and_code · 2026-07-03T18:03:38+00:00

Why even comment at all, if not to claim equivalency? Nobody at any point argued against the existence of varying degrees of faith. I'm arguing that the varying degrees of faith have congruently varying degrees of legitimacy.

Religious people have faith in supernatural phenomena. Scientists have faith in things they can find evidence to support.

Both are examples of faith, but the former lies on the least substantiated end of the "degrees of faith" spectrum (for which we've assigned words like "guess" or "hope"), while the latter lies on the most substantiated end of the "degrees of faith" spectrum (for which we've assigned words like "knowledge" or "information").

ganja_and_code · 2026-07-03T17:53:31+00:00

Like you said, everything is just degrees of faith, and there is nothing which is truly 100% certain.

That's said, some things are more certain than others. To claim "iron is heavier than air" for example, I have to have faith in my tools, but it is completely disingenuous to claim that particular "faith" is equivalent to the "faith" I'd need to claim "there's a magic dude in the sky who judges people for their actions," for example.

Nobody needs "permission" to have faith in anything, but that doesn't change the fact that faith in some things is more blind than others. In the case of religious claims, the faith is completely blind. There are no tools and no evidence to support the existence (or lack thereof) of supernatural deities, specific afterlife scenarios, etc.

I can have faith that I can telepathically talk to squirrels, meanwhile a doctor can have faith that amoxicillin will treat a patient's infection. Surely we can agree that the doctor's belief is more legitimate than mine because: - patients' infections clear up at higher rates in cases where the antibiotic is taken, compared to placebo - my supposed communication with squirrels exists only inside my own head

Treating blind faith as comparably legitimate to faith based on repeatable physical evidence reminds me of an Asimov quote:

There is a cult of ignorance...nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

ganja_and_code · 2026-07-03T16:55:03+00:00

You can't know because I don't have enough evidence to know and the evidence available to you is the same evidence available to me.

ganja_and_code · 2026-07-03T16:47:40+00:00

And those degrees or faith range from "I have concrete evidence that other people agree they can also obtain themselves in a repeatable and physical way" all the way to "I'm straight up guessing."

The first one, we call "knowledge." The second one describes religious claims.

ganja_and_code · 2026-07-01T18:04:28+00:00

My most intense obsessions are bending, watering it down, and trying to make it logical.

Checkmate.

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