[sonusario]

> ... which is why just making things up is not a reliable way to determine truth.

Your argument states "Science says that untestable claims about reality are unreliable" and not "Science says that making things up is not a reliable way to determine truth". Your argument also states "Religion says that certain untestable claims about reality are reliable" and not "Religion says that making things up is a reliable way to determine truth". There is a difference between the reliability of finding the truth by making up a claim and the reliability of the claim itself.

Your argument (from what I can tell as it is written) is not about the reliability of making up a claim but about the reliability of a claim itself. Even if your argument were referring to the reliability of making up a claim, I don't know of any religion that says or concludes that making up claims is reliable. Even if one did, that wouldn't lend itself to making the blanket statement "Religion says ...".

> "reliability of a claim" means the probability that the claim is true, based on what you know. The fact that some of the claims might be true does not mean that the probability of any particular claim being true is high.

Defining, conversely, the "unreliability of a claim" as the probability that the claim is false, your argument becomes the following:

> 1) Science says that untestable claims about reality have a probability of being false.

> 2) Religion says that certain untestable claims about reality have a probability of being true.

> 3) Therefore, religion's claims as to the probability of being true of some claims about reality contradicts science's claims as to the probability of being true of those claims.

Given that your argument makes no reference to what is more or less probable, no contradiction has been established (pending whether you mean unreliable to mean less likely and reliable to mean more likely (but then you'd need to establish how those probabilities were derived)). I don't want to put words in your mouth, so you may want to rephrase your argument because I doubt this is what you meant given that it does not establish your point.

> It's not reliable _for_ anything, it is simply likely to be a correct description of reality.

You can't/don't rely on scientific claims "_for_" anything? As in, the claims of science are not reliable for things like putting satellites into orbit or pursuing further truths, they are just likely a correct description of reality?

>> Assuming your saying "It is not warranted" because the claim "God exists" is not falsifiable, how has it been shown that the claim "God exists" is not a falsifiable claim?

> What would you accept as falsification of the claim of the existence of the god that you believe in?

You're shifting the burden of proof. I have at least five independent criterion, but you don't need to know them. Not having something to accept as falsification for the claim "water only boils at 100°C or greater (under 1 atm)" doesn't mean that there can't be one. So unless you have some solid demonstration of your claim, because lack of evidence doesn't seal the deal, then you have no convincing basis for claiming "'God exists' is not a falsifiable claim".

> All you are really saying here is "What if reality isn't real?" ...

Hahaha, what?? Not at all! I'm saying that, given what seems to be your want of disregarding all non-falsifiable claims as "indistinguishable from stuff someone just made up", you'd also be disregarding the claim "our senses our reliable" as "indistinguishable from stuff someone just made up" because that claim is not falsifiable in principle (it being non-falsifiable something we seem to agree on since we think it is self-evident).

If you think the claim "our senses are reliable" is falsifiable, then YOU would be the one likely to assert the question "What if reality isn't real?".

> And yes, I am aware that I am skipping a lot of stuff. ...

Thank you for mentioning it. I couldn't tell if stuff was being missed or ignored. It can be easy to miss things in walls of text.

> ... so I think we are better off concentrating on that for now ...

Sure, I've done more skimming myself.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

> There is a difference between the reliability of finding the truth by making up a claim and the reliability of the claim itself.

What is "the reliability of the claim itself", if it is not the reliability of the method that is used to estalish that claim?

> Given that your argument makes no reference to what is more or less probable

Yes, it does. Reliability (of a claim) is a scale expressing a probability of being true. "reliable" is the high probability end of that scale, "unreliable" is the low probability end of that scale.

> (but then you'd need to establish how those probabilities were derived)

Yes, I have, over, and over, and over, even in my last post.

> You can't/don't rely on scientific claims "_for_" anything?

That wasn't the question. Obviously, the more likely a claim is true, the more you are justified to rely on it as the basis for making decisions about the future. But the phrase "claim A is reliable" makes perfect sense without a "for X", simply as an expression of how likely the claim is to be true.

> As in, the claims of science are not reliable for things like putting satellites into orbit or pursuing further truths, they are just likely a correct description of reality?

Being a correct description of reality is what makes a claim useful for making predictions about the future behavior of that reality, and thus for influencing reality in such a way that a satellite does behave as intended/predicted.

> You're shifting the burden of proof.

No, I am not, I am simply performing the empirical observation that is required to establish whether the claim is testable.

> Not having something to accept as falsification for the claim "water only boils at 100°C or greater (under 1 atm)" doesn't mean that there can't be one.

Actually, that is all that testability is about: Whether there is something that would convince you that you are wrong if it were demonstrated to you. For "water only boils at 100°C or greater (under 1 atm)" that should be the case, because that statement under standard English language rules has semantics that imply a contradiction with certain potential observations. But ultimately, what counts is whether whoever is making the claim would accept those demonstrations as contradicting their claim.

> (it being non-falsifiable something we seem to agree on since we think it is self-evident).

No, not at all.

The problem is that that whole question is massively ambiguous, and the answer is completely different depending on the interpretation, or possibly some interpretations are just nonsensical questions.

If you mean whether our senses correctly reflect "ultimate reality": That would indeed be unfalsifiable, and for that exact reason it is indistinguishable from shit someone made up, and thus a highly unreliable claim.

If you mean whether our senses generally produce a coherent picture of an outside world: That is falsifiable, in that we can cross-correlate different senses, between perceptions of the same sense over time, as well as between our own and others' perceptions. I am guessing that that is maybe why you say that this is self-evident, but really, it's way more than just self-evident. Actually, that is exactly how we do know in how many ways our senses indeed are not reliable. There is a lot of redundancy in our senses (and indirect methods of perceiving the world) that allows us to test the reliability of each sense, with no sense in particular being one that we just have to trust blindly.

But mind you that all those tests of our senses do not in any way demonstrate that we can sense "ultimate reality". Possibly, we can't, but that is not a problem for our ability to navigate the (perceptual) reality we find outselves in, or for the testability of that fact.

[sonusario]

> What is "the reliability of the claim itself", if it is not the reliability of the method that is used to estalish that claim?

Wut?? If you can't see that "the reliability of the claim itself" =/= "the reliability of the method that is used to establish that claim", then I think we are done here because this would make for an insuperable disagreement. In the first phrase 'reliability' refers to the claim, and in the second it refers to the method. The claim and the method that is used to establish that claim are two different things.

> Yes, I have, over, and over, and over, even in my last post.

No you haven't. The method 'making-things-up' we already agree is unreliable, but you have not established that non-testable claims have a greater probability of being untrue rather than true. If I missed it, perhaps you could quote what you think has been so obviously stated that you needn't bother repeating it? I'll ask you to include an inequality proof and/or the percentages that have been calculated to reach/assert this conclusion.

> But the phrase "claim A is reliable" makes perfect sense without a "for X", simply as an expression of how likely the claim is to be true.

So you think these phrases are equal?: "claim A is reliable" = "it is likely claim A is true" = "the method that is used to establish claim A is reliable"

> Being a correct description of reality is what makes a claim useful for making predictions about the future behavior of that reality, and thus for influencing reality in such a way that a satellite does behave as intended/predicted.

And claims that are correct descriptions of reality are not reliable "_for_" such use?

> No, I am not, I am simply performing the empirical observation that is required to establish whether the claim is testable.

If you are performing said observation now to form a basis for your claim, did your claim not have a basis before?

> But ultimately, what counts is whether whoever is making the claim would accept those demonstrations as contradicting their claim.

So, whether a claim is falsifiable is subjective?

Also, are claims of the form "X is not falsifiable" falsifiable? If so, how might they be falsified?

> If you mean whether our senses generally produce a coherent picture of an outside world: That is falsifiable, in that we can cross-correlate different senses, between perceptions of the same sense over time, as well as between our own and others' perceptions.

Is the claim "our senses have at least one way in which they are reliable" falsifiable?

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

> The claim and the method that is used to establish that claim are two different things.

Yes, of course they are! But there simply is no such thing as "the reliability of the claim" that is distinct from "the reliability of the method used to arrive at the claim", because reliability as an attribute of the claim itself is a category error. The way "the reliability of the claim" is commonly used is simply as a short-hand to refer to what more precisely would be called "the reliability of the method used to arrive at the claim".

If you take the claim "this bridge can bear 1632 tons", then what determines the "reliability of that claim" is how it was derived, there is no inherent reliability to just the claim itself. If someone rolled some dice to create that number, then that is a completely unreliable claim. If someone put 1632 tons of steel blocks on the bridge and it didn't fail, then that is at the very least a lot more reliable than rolling some dice. The fact that the exact same claim has completely different reliability, depending on how it was arrived at, should tell you that the reliability is actually a property of the process used to derive it, and not of the claim itself, even if that is how it is commonly phrased.

> The method 'making-things-up' we already agree is unreliable, but you have not established that non-testable claims have a greater probability of being untrue rather than true.

Do you agree that made-up claims have a greater probability of being untrue rather than true?

Do you agree that non-testable claims are indistinguishable from claims arrived at by making them up?

> So you think these phrases are equal?: "claim A is reliable" = "it is likely claim A is true" = "the method that is used to establish claim A is reliable"

Seems sensible to me!

> And claims that are correct descriptions of reality are not reliable "_for_" such use?

Oh, sure, of course they are! I had understood your question to mean that you thought that the specification of a particular application was missing, or something along those lines. But yes, that they are reliable for such use is the implication, of course.

> If you are performing said observation now to form a basis for your claim, did your claim not have a basis before?

Really, I have implicitly switched the claim, simply to enable a productive discussion.

The problem is that "god" is a word that is used to refer to so many different and mutually contradictory concepts that demonstrating any claim for all of those concepts can be a lot of work, and often is even impossible because someone will come along and claim that god is the sun or something (and under that definition, obviously, god does exist, but probably isn't Jesus, say). So, before, I made a claim that is generally true for the vast majority of the god concepts that people have, just for a wide variety of reasons, depending on the specific concept.

But explaining how the claim is true for most/all god concepts is a lot of work--and also probably not the most useful thing to do, when you, presumably, have a specific god concept in mind, so focusing on that seems more productive than getting lost in ideas that you may not agree with anyway. Which is why I switched from the general claim to a more specific claim that's presumably more relevant to you.

> So, whether a claim is falsifiable is subjective?

No, it's not that the falsifiability is subjective, but rather that what ultimately matters is the falsifiability of what you actually think, not of what someone else interprets your statements to mean. If someone says "water boils at 100 °C", you would presumably agree that that is a statement that implies certain possibilities to falsify it, and as such the statement would qualify as a falsifiable claim, based on how the English language is generally understood to work. But if you were to demonstrate liquid water at 200 °C to whoever is uttering that sentence and they would still keep making the same statement, then their internal model that they try to express as "water boils at 100 °C" is still untestable, and that is still a problem.

> Also, are claims of the form "X is not falsifiable" falsifiable? If so, how might they be falsified?

By showing that whoever is holding the supposedly unfalsifiable position would actually accept some demonstrations as reasons to reject the claim?

> Is the claim "our senses have at least one way in which they are reliable" falsifiable?

Are we talking about "reliable for detecting ultimate reality" or "reliable for detecting the reality that they are detecting"?

[sonusario]

You > "But there simply is no such thing as "the reliability of the claim" that is distinct from "the reliability of the method used to arrive at the claim...".

Also you (in response to my question "And claims that are correct descriptions of reality are not reliable "_for_" such use?")> "Oh, sure, of course they are!"

> The way "the reliability of the claim" is commonly used is simply as a short-hand to refer to what more precisely would be called "the reliability of the method used to arrive at the claim".

Would you provide a source on this being the common usage?

> Do you agree that made-up claims have a greater probability of being untrue rather than true?

If that is the case, it is not obvious, because for every claim "X" there is also the claim "not X", meaning that exactly half all claims are true. So you'll need to establish what would tip that balance.

> Seems sensible to me!

Let A be the true claim "this bridge can bear 1632 tons", and the method that produced it is "making the claim A up on the spot".

Would you still say these phrases are equal?: "the claim A is reliable" = "it is likely the claim A is true" = "making the claim A up on the spot to establish claim A is reliable"?

=====================

> By showing that whoever is holding the supposedly unfalsifiable position would actually accept some demonstrations as reasons to reject the claim?

Are you asking me?

=======

0) According to you: If X is falsifiable, then X "is not something we know for absolutely certain to be true, [but that] all attempts to falsify it so far have failed, that is all".

===

1) If the claim "X is not falsifiable" is falsifiable, then "X is not falsifiable" "is not something we know for absolutely certain to be true, [but that] all attempts to falsify it so far have failed, that is all". (Substitution 0)

2) According to you: The claim "X is not falsifiable" is falsifiable"?". (ASSUMPTION)

3) Therefore: The "X is not falsifiable" "is not something we know for absolutely certain to be true, [but that] all attempts to falsify it so far have failed, that is all". (Conditional Elimination from 1, 2)

=======

In other words, by your definitions, there is no way to establish with certainty that a claim is not falsifiable, if its not being falsifiable can be falsified.

=====================

>> Is the claim "our senses have at least one way in which they are reliable" falsifiable?

> Are we talking about "reliable for detecting ultimate reality" or "reliable for detecting the reality that they are detecting"?

Reliable for detecting the reality that they are detecting.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

> You > "But there simply is no such thing as "the reliability of the claim" that is distinct from "the reliability of the method used to arrive at the claim...".

> Also you (in response to my question "And claims that are correct descriptions of reality are not reliable "_for_" such use?")> "Oh, sure, of course they are!"

I'm not sure what you are getting at?! If you think I should be objecting to you using the word "correct", because that is a property of the claim itself and not dependent on the method used to arrive at it: Sure, assume that I object to that. But it seemed to me that that wasn't relevant to what you were actually asking about, namely, whether reliability of a claim implies potential usefulness of that claim _for_ some further purpose.

> Would you provide a source on this being the common usage?

I really don't understand why you are asking this. I already explained why the notion of reliability of the claim itself doesn't make any sense/is a category error. And I suppose that you would agree that people do use phrases like "claim X is reliable", and that it is usually perfectly understandable what they mean by that. Also, under the interpretation that I suggested, you generally do understand what people are trying to tell you when they use such a phrase, while avoiding the obvious logical nonsense that follows if you assume that reliability is a property of the claim itself.

Now, it may well be true that many people who use such a phrase have never really thought through what exactly they mean by that, and thus have never made a conscious decision of whether they are using one definition or the other. But that isn't a reason to think that they likely intend to use a definition that leads to contradictions.

It seems like you are asking me to provide a source for the claim that people are not generally intending to talk nonsense. It's not that that isn't a thing that can be investigated empirically, but I doubt that you actually disagree on this.

> If that is the case, it is not obvious, because for every claim "X" there is also the claim "not X", meaning that exactly half all claims are true. So you'll need to establish what would tip that balance.

Well, while that is kinda true, it's also not really particularly relevant in this context? Even if there were a 50/50 chance, that would not be a useful source of information, would it?

The other problem with that perspective is that it counts redundant claims more than once. Like, if some measurement of X could give the result 0, 1, or 2, then "X is not 0" is the same claim as "X is 1 or 2", just phrased differently. So, if you want to get a useful result, you have to rather compare non-redundant claims of the same structure and at the same resolution. If you do that, you notice that there in particular are tons of claims about numerical values, and that there is an infinite number of either discrete values of or equal-sized intervals that you could plug into any such claim to make up new claims--but for any particular measurement, only one of those infinitely many possible values or ranges will correspond to reality, and almost all claims that you could make up this way will be wrong.

If you don't find that convincing, I guess we might also replace "made-up claims are almost all false" with "made-up claims are no more likely to be true than chance", as you seem to already be agreeing with that? I don't think I drew any conclusions that require the stronger claim, so we might as well go with a lower lower bound instead.

> Let A be the true claim "this bridge can bear 1632 tons", and the method that produced it is "making the claim A up on the spot".

> Would you still say these phrases are equal?: "the claim A is reliable" = "it is likely the claim A is true" = "making the claim A up on the spot to establish claim A is reliable"?

Well, they all evaluate to false, so yes? Though I don't understand why you mention that the claim is true, as that makes no difference!? In the scenario you are describing, there is no reason for anyone to believe that it is true, because all they know is that someone made it up.

> Are you asking me?

No, I am telling you--though I wondered why you asked the original question, as the possibility to falsify that claim seems kinda ovious!?

> In other words, by your definitions, there is no way to establish with certainty that a claim is not falsifiable, if its not being falsifiable can be falsified.

So?

> Reliable for detecting the reality that they are detecting.

Then I don't even understand what the point of that question is. Like, what else would our senses detect, if not what they detect?

Could we maybe transfer this to a different scenario where it isn't as easy to get confused by intuitions? Like, assume there exists a robot with a bunch of sensors. And let's assume you can remote-control this robot, and remotely read what its sensor inputs measure. Now, with this robot you could do what I described above: You could check all those sensors for consistency. And maybe you could somehow communicate with other robots and check for consistency with the readings of their sensors. None of that guarantees that the robot (and thus you through it) sees "real reality", for all you know, it was built with all sensor connectors linked up to a computer that generates fake sensor signals from a simulation running on that computer, including a simulation of the stimuli from interacting with other (actually simulated) robots. But you said that that wasn't what we were talking about. So, if we aren't talking about that, then we are talking about actual sensors!? Is your question whether this guarantees that the sensors are free of any defects? (Well, no?) Or whether it is guaranteed that the robot itself can not be defective? (No?)

Or ... what else? I really don't understand what you are asking here.

[sonusario]

Anything you've said with > ... reliability is a property of the claim itself ...

I have never stated that I thought this. You may have thought my wording implied that, but that has never been what I was getting at. You've incorrectly inferred this on your own, so I never addressed any statement you made regarding it as it was getting away from the point. But clearly since you've struggled to wrap your head around that, I've now spelled it out for you.

> It seems like you are asking me to provide a source for the claim that people are not generally intending to talk nonsense. It's not that that isn't a thing that can be investigated empirically, but I doubt that you actually disagree on this.

No, I've been getting at asking why you think people mean "the method used to arrive at claim X is reliable" rather than something like "claim X can be trusted for use", when "claim X is reliable" is stated.

Your stance is also noticeably less coherent when it is considered that "claim X" can't be replaced by "this wrench" or "this car" and not lack significant ambiguity ("the method used to arrive at this car is reliable"). Where as if you were to replace "claim X" in "claim X can be trusted for use" for "this car", you'd get "this car can be trusted for use".

What you've done is equivocate, using "reliability" differently for claims versus how it is used in all other areas. In particular using it in reference to X on one hand and in reference to the method that derived X on the other, which has nothing like a mechanical analog to help indicate that your usage is one that matches the usage of anyone else outside of your own head.

> Even if there were a 50/50 chance, that would not be a useful source of information, would it?

Then perhaps what you mean is: Made-up claims have a greater probability of being untrue than claims that are not made up. If that is the case are you asserting that "Any method that doesn't make up claims has a greater probability of being true than any methods that do make up claims"?

> Well, they all evaluate to false, so yes?

So, you think it is possible for some claim to be true and it not be likely that said claim is true?

> So?

According to you: The assertion of any claim that is not falsifiable is not warranted.

This has no certain basis, by your definitions. As a result this means that no claim should be ignored just because it is currently considered to not be falsifiable.

Another question comes to mind. Say you claim "water only boils at 150°C+ at 1 atm". You then perform a test on water at "1 atm", and it boils at 100°C. Having falsified the original claim, according to you, you can now say "it is not the case that water only boils at 150°C+ at 1 atm".

After falsifying the claim "water only boils at 150°C+ at 1 atm", is the claim "it is not the case that water only boils at 150°C+ at 1 atm" falsifiable, and if so how might it be falsified?

> Then I don't even understand what the point of that question is. Like, what else would our senses detect, if not what they detect?

That's partly my point, they wouldn't, and the other part is to have you recognize that there is a self-evidently true claim that is not falsifiable. You can't falsify the claim "our senses have at least one way in which they are reliable". To say that you could would be to say you have the potential to reliably, with your senses, demonstrate that the claim "our senses have at least one way in which they are reliable" is false.