Originally Posted by Hilston...
Prodigal writes:
If I want to validate the correctness of my brain, or the validity of my senses, I can just go to a doctor.
And how will you then process the information he gives you? By the senses and reasoning faculties that you cannot validate? The doctor may be giving you an accurate assessment of your senses and reason, but without validating them, you don't know if what you're hearing from him is being accurately perceived by your ears and correcty processed by your brain.
Prodigal writes:
I'm not entirely sure if there's any way for anyone to validate their senses.
So then you need to shuttup about denying "claims that have no proof to verify their validity." Until you can validate that very statement, which you admittedly cannot, you have no grounds to deny anyone's belief about anything.
Prodigal writes:
I can go to college and learn that the sky is in fact blue and I can be shown color samples of blue and red and see the difference between the two.
Not if your senses are invalid, Prodigal!!!
Prodigal writes:
I don't really know what you want from me.
An admission that you have an irrational blind faith assumption, the very thing you criticize of others.
Prodigal writes:
What criteria is there for validating my senses? If there's none than everyone is in doubt and uncertainty and in which case no one should believe anything.
Yes, you get it now. Excellent.
Prodigal writes:
Hilston, if I'm reading you correctly, there's no way anything can be proven so long as there's the possibility that our eyes are actually seeing something that isn't there.
Bingo!
Prodigal writes:
What's the criteria for knowing that what you see is indeed not what you're seeing?
I couldn't have said it better myself.
Prodigal writes:
You can use big words, philosophical arguments and you can talk down to me, but you have no solutions to any of the problems you point out so far, so my only assumption can be that you're just trying to confuse me.
I apologize for talking down to you, Prodigal. I was about ready to give up on you because you weren't getting this. But with your most recent post it seems you now get it. No, I'm not trying to confuse you. I'm actually trying to bring clarity to this question, to get you and others to face the problem we all have with our most basic assumptions about life, existence, experience, etc.
Prodigal writes:
Hilston, you're a lot smarter than I, but you haven't convinced me of anything.
I would hope that I've convinced you that you can't go around demanding proof and validation when you yourself cannot prove or validate the means by which you presume to assess someone else's proof or validation.
Prodigal writes:
I don't have to validate my senses, like I said, I'm a healthy person, but saying the sky is red when in fact it is for everyone to see, blue doesn't make sense to me.
What if you see blue as red, Prodigal? How would you ever know? Color blind people sometimes go a very long time thinking dark grey is "red" and light grey is "green." Sometimes they're lucky enough to find out that the concensus differs from their perception, but that in itself doesn't make the consensus correct. Maybe the so-called "color blind" people are correct, and the rest of us are seeing something that isn't really there?
Prodigal writes:
In a world where blue can be red and six can be nine, wouldn't you agree that it's not safe to believe anything?
Based only on what you've offered thus far, I would agree. Your world is a dangerous, uncertain, and dubious place.
Prodigal writes:
Oh, and how do I go about validating my senses?
See below.
Prodigal writes:
You seem to know all about it, can you refer me to a local sense validator, or whatever they call them? If it's so darn important to you, I'd like to get it done, if it is at all possible, and if it's not than your questions to me are pointless, hostile and worth nothing more than my middle finger. If there is a way for me to validate my senses than I can move up the ladder and be closer to you and I won't frustrate you so much?
We all presume to be rational people. But if we want to be authentically rational, we need to find a way to validate our presumed rationality, as well as our sense functions. Your way obviously doesn't work. This was the sin of the Garden. Adam tried to validate his own reasoning by declaring, by his actions, that he would go it alone. He would make judgments and assessments based on his own autonomy, his own senses, his own reasoning. Determining good and evil is the essence of deity. By presuming to discern good and evil apart from God, Adam unlawfully usurped God's authority and sought to become his own lawmaker, knowing good and evil. Eating the fruit was almost incidental. That action manifested what was already in Adam's heart. And with that act, all of Adam's certainty went out the window, and he found himself in the same shoes that you are in right now. And if you do not repent of being your own lawmaker and throw yourself upon the mercy of The Court, you will burn in hell with Adam.
Only trust in Christ as revealed in the Scripture can validate your reasoning and sense faculties. With trust in Christ comes the gift of certainty, by which you can be certain about the verity of the Scriptures. By acknowledging Christ as the Source of all truth, and the Scriptures as His inerrant and infallible Word, you won't have to toss an apple in the air a million times to know that induction works. You will see it attested in the Scriptures, and since you will have certainty regarding the Scriptures, you can then be equally certain about what they infer, including the verity of the senses and the validity of logic and reason.
The context is made clear by the post itself but the link will take you to the thread if you're interested.
It is a bit like being in the twilight zone for me to be giving a POTD to Jim Hilston but now that I understand where he's going with his debating style it's just seems incredibly brilliant.
Very good Jim! Keep it up! :thumb:
Resting in Him,
Clete
