[maaku]

If it's not testable, what's the point? If it is not testable you are literally saying it has no effect on the world.

Note that something can be political or sociological and still be testable. You can have a utilitarian moral philosophy where you assign utilities and sum them up, then do surveys or focus groups to to measure agreement with the results.

But if a theory literally has no testable predictions? That is the definition of useless.

[Fargren]

>>If it is not testable you are literally saying it has no effect on the world.

It's provable that things that are true are not demonstrable(see Gödel's incompleteness theorem). It follows that things that are not testable are true, and for some d definition of truth, it means they have an effect in the word. So we absolutely can, in a meaningful way, wonder about the posible consequences of something that while not testable may be true. Just because something it solely potentially meaningful does not mean it it's entirely meaningless.

[maaku]

That's a very uninteresting and unscientific definition of truth. But even less interesting is arguing over definitions.

As a scientific person, I'm only concerned with truth that derives directly from observation. "True but not demonstrable" is an oxymoron.

[tomlock]

Can you observe the truth of the statement:

"Truth from observation is the only truth that matters."

Where can I also observe this?

[tomlock]

>>You can have a utilitarian moral philosophy

Let me stop you right there. You can have a utilitarian moral philosophy, sure. But the question of if you ought to have such a philosophy is a philosophical one. To get to the point of having tests of optimized utility there is an underlying question that has no tests, which is are tests for utility really the best tests to run?

Its either turtles all the way down: tests testing the effectiveness of tests, or, you get into philosophy.

[maaku]

Which is arbitrary and meaningless.

Have fun with your waste of a mind.

[tomlock]

Interesting. What test do you propose to determine whether it is arbitrary and meaningless?