"Bill M" <wmech@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> said :
> Get an education. Science proves the facts of the world every day.
> Religionists create illusions
> of facts every day. Get an education. Your statement is pure nonsense.
And yours remains insistence. I agree entirely that science proves the
facts of the world every day. If I didn't think that then, as Agent
Smith implied, there would be no reason for me to obey the rules of the
road. If they might not even be real, so why should I comply with them?
But without any indication of an alternative reality, or how such an
alternative reality might work, it would make little sense for me to
refuse to comply with the reality I perceive. But that reality also
contains every instrument that I might use to measure it - and thus,
while these instruments might re****t accurately what they observe, by
definition they can be observing only the 'reality' within which they are
contained.
Similarly, your view of the world depends solely on your perceptions.
Everything you experience is dependent on them. If, for some reason,
your perceptions are re****ting inaccurately, then your view of the world
will be unreliable - but you will still have no reason to assume it is
unreliable. Everything will seem - as it so clearly does now -
blindingly obvious and logical to you. It is that confidence in your
perceptions that leads you to reject the very possibility that what you
see might not be precisely what's there. You know the world is as it is
*because you can see that it is*.
The question, then, is whether you can confirm *objectively* what your
perceptions are telling you. The fact remains, however it might irritate
you, that you can't.
(Incidentally, it might be worth pointing out - whether or not it'll be
of any consequence to you - that I'm not actually making this argument in
some attempt to 'prove God', as I've no doubt you'll assume. I'm not
actually a Christian fundamentalist trying to convert you. The mention
of solipsism just interested me in relation to your constant demands for
'objective, verifiable evidence', and how far objectivity can really go.)
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