Burden of proof (philosophy)

which is your problem, not mine
.

I didn't

 

Well, it's your problem if it's circular reasoning. Of course, even a person who used circular reasoning would say/think they didn't, so you saying that you didn't doesn't really mean anything. I could proclaim that I was right without any argument too, but it'd be dishonest of me.

 

im not using circular reasoning, so its not my problem.

 

You provided an argument, I questioned the argument, you back it up with the argument that you've already proven it, even though my entire argument is to question that particular argument. That is circular.

 

which is YOUR problem. I've sufficiently explained why you can't prove a negative.

 

I have shown you why your explanation is incorrect, and given a counterexample which shows that your conclusion is incorrect. If what you're saying is my problem, then I guess those two facts are your problems.

 

no you haven't.

 

I find it interesting that popular scientific methodology since Karl Popper has traditionally assumed the exact opposite of what we are reading here: you can never prove a hypothesis, only disprove a hypothesis. No matter how good your hypothesis is, there could always be another hypothesis out there that gives just as good of a prediction or a better one. On the other hand, it can be proven that a hypothesis fails to make accurate predictions.

 

How thin do you want to split that hair? You cant prove anything, the best you can do is run with the strength of probability.

 

Which has nothing to do with whether or not someone can lack belief. They, quite obviously can. Everyone lacks belief in something. If you neither believe in God nor believe that he doesn't exist, then you lack belief. You can't honestly expect me to believe that any reasonable person has difficulty understanding that basic concept.

 

If you can't explain it further, maybe you didn't understand it. I mean, you're obviously dodging the questions (even other posters have pointed this out). Every opinion looks true when you hold them, but it is only through careful wording and explanation that we can improve our opinions.

 

atheists do not lack belief, they lack evidence and conclude there is no God, which is why they call themselves atheists instead of agnostics.

 

In your incorrect opinion. I lack belief, I do not need to fall back on absence of evidence. I can understand that it must be frustrating for you that people won't adopt positions that they don't hold so that you can attack them for positions that they don't hold but, to be honest, I'm starting to feel pity for you.

 

well I think its hilarious that university profs have labelled the atheists of lack 'internet atheists', because they dont want anything to do with the bogus antiphilosophy the internet atheits are spreading around because you believe there is not God, and people who believe there is no God are called atheists. Thats what atheist means.

 

Again, you forget agnostic atheists.

 

I am dodging nothing. My comprehension is not my problem.

 

You kind of are, though. "I am not dead" is a claim. It is proven in that since I think, I cannot be dead (thinking would be definitionally impossible if I were dead). It is also proof of the claim that I am alive, but I don't see how that matters.

First principles say that given that there is impossible that I am dead, it is proven that I am not dead. You have not shown why the claim I am alive has any impact on that fact.

When I mentioned this, you said "You can't prove a negative", but since that was the statement that was being questioned, you can't use it in the logic, it would be circular reasoning.

 

In philosophy I don't believe there is a formal distinction between "alive" and "dead".

"Alive and dead" are mostly scientific and religious issues.

In philosophy, we simply focus on existence.

Cogito ergo sum.

 

Whenever you pick a university you are also choosing a body of dogma.

Be careful what you choose.

 

Philosophy is very broad (indeed, it technically includes science). There are many parts of philosophy where that distinction is useful. I refer you to this lecture series on the philosophy of death:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEA18FAF1AD9047B0

 

Religion is ancient, wicked, and perverted.

The ancient Greeks invented Philosophy to escape from the superstitions of Religion.

Their discoveries about pure human thought led to Science, but Science itself is separate and very different from Philosophy.

In Philosophy it is pure human thought and irrefutable truth that rule.

Whereas Science is merely a collection of observations made with instruments followed by inferences about the similarities of the data.

Big difference.

 

In your opinion.

 

I'm not. I've directly addressed your claim and shown why it is incorrect. you keep mistaking your comprehension issues as being my problem. It is not.

 

Philosophy is the study of (among other things) the world and nature, and science is one such endeavour. It's true that many people use "philosophy" to refer to things that don't fall under another category, but that doesn't make it not philosophy.

Science is not just a collection of observations, it is also the conclusions that can be drawn from them, as well as the method by which all of this occurs, and as such, it is a subset of philosophy. Even "making stuff up" is a natural philosophy, it's just a particularly bad one.

Either way, none of this changes the fact that death is often a useful concept in philosophy.

 

That's a rather confusing explanation. Science is aimed for a very specific kind of truth which is about a repeatable phenomenon. Science is the discovery of the set of rules governing such a phenomenon. Science can confirm things beyond doubt simply because that phenomenon can repeat indefinitely for us to do infinitive number of observations and experiments till we can predict its repetition without error (or with calculable error). Science is almost futile about things which don't repeat itself, or things not lying inside our physical reach for us to do repeating observation and speculation. To be more specific, science is almost futile about the past, about the future and about why lying outside the 3D space we are living in.