Reasonable Proof

Reasonable Proof

 

In The Book : The Pig that Wants to be Eaten by Julian Baggini*

There is A Chapter that discusses Under-Determination of Theory by Evidence.

This is The Idea that Any given Proposal Suffers from A Sufficient Lack of Evidence to make it ‘Fully Knowable’. Otherwise known as ‘Suspect’. 

Most people believe that they ‘Know’ plenty of things, but There is always an Entirely Reasonable Gap between Certainty & Doubt to allow an Alternative Theory to be Considered by Fair-Minded People. 

The American Judicial System allows for this by Suggesting that it is Entirely Reasonable to Sentence a Man or Womyn to Death if you have a Reasonable Belief that they are Guilty. Sure— They might conceivably be Innocent, but how many tenuous circumstances does their Defense Attorney want us to Assume Might be True to Disregard Our Reasonable Beliefs ?

This line of Absolutism then considers The Frying Pan of Evolution; Which Reasonable People believe is True, But The Fair-Minded Suspect is Not True.

This then brings up The Idea of The Smoking Gun. A Single Piece of Evidence that Sways us against all other Fragments of Evidence to Believe An Argument that we may have previous sat on The Edge of The Frying Pan on.

The Theory of Evolution has several of these Smoking Guns, which has persuaded many Orthodox thinkers into believing that it is True; That people have not only evolved from Ape-Like Ancestors ( Not Proper Modern Apes ! ), But Fishies or Spongal Ancestors.  

But this points to The Flaw of The Smoking Gun. 

Many such Pieces of Evidence may seem very Convincing, & be Entirely Wrong, Erroneous or Irrelevant. 

A Smoking Gun is merely another Piece of Evidence that is Heavily Weighted towards The Conclusion, But it will never Weigh as much as Elephant sitting on A Singularity. 

And Determining how much The Elephant does weigh, is a remarkable subjective notion. There will always be Tangental Factors or Variables that will always be Entirely Neglected in Consideration. If you simply allow for One Tiny Ancillary Perspective; That might allow for a Mathematical Probability to Overwhelm an Otherwise Certain Preclusion. 

How can you even know anything ?

How certain can you ever be about anything ?

You can’t.

And rather than freeze your decision making processes in a block of Solidified Helium; 

Knowing that Knowing is Impossible ( ! ) Frees you into The Ability to Make Decisions Willy-Nilly, Knowing that This is The Best you can do. 

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* re: The Pig… ( i read this book several years ago, & then gave it to my aunt, thinking that it was a wonderful book & that she’d enjoy it. i very much suspect though, that she never did read it! ( how many books have you read that were given to you by someone ? ) 

There was one chapter that i vaguely remembered about something something, & i later regretted giving The book to her, because i wanted to re-read that one chapter, so i actually bought The book for my Kindle Fire, & now i’ve been re-reading The whole book. What i have discovered is that many ideas that i now hold to be uniquely mine, are mentioned in this book ! Did i first come across these ideas in this book, that i read many years ago; Or is it a mere Coincidence that that Julian & i share so many profound thoughts !

Anyways; The Chapter that i was trying to recall was The Beetle in The Box, which discusses The Idea of Our Thoughts being Uniquely Our own, & that trying to Communicate Internal Sensations is Ultimately Futile !