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In terms of methodological approach I much prefer the approach of science/philosophy, yes.

But that's not what I'm arguing - if anything I was arguing against those who would apply strict logical rules (namely the law of the excluded middle, which I said "doesn't have to hold in the realm of belief") to belief status. I was dealing with the mistaken objection that non-belief in P is...

It is also worth noting that there is a difference between suggesting that we are unlikely to ever know the answer, and saying that the answer is, in principle, unknowable to us. The latter requires a very strong impossibility argument which is relatively difficult to make, and few philosophers...

Correct. The technical distinction I like to draw (and I apologise for the following paragraphs, they will be a touch pedantic) is that the law of the excluded middle doesn't have to hold in the realm of belief. The law claims that for any given proposition 'P' either P is true or not-P is...

Scientific objections to (1) are often fielded from a perspective which endorses non-deterministic, or properly random, interpretations of quantum mechanics. If particles can spontaneously emerge in a non-deterministic way then causes may not be necessary in order for things to exist (though, I...

Howdy Katie - I was in Melbourne for a conference of sorts. Well, I do. Though it is of course incorrect to assert that all atheists share my brand of moral nihilism. This strikes me as a strange kind of statement to make. I think it is because the concept of 'worth' itself is morally...

Too true. The poor UNSW Faculty of Arts isn't fairing too well. It saddens me that niche interest courses are so massively discouraged (/prohibited?) due to the fact that they attract so few students. The odds of my encountering subjects dealing with things as esoteric as modal or paraconsistent...

Pity we can't 'sticky' posts within a thread - great post Pwar.

Does the sky funk? Mu

Aye it does. Mind you, there have been curious attempts to formulate laws of biology - think statements like "all renates are caudates", or even "all biological diversity is generated by evolution" (they have the kind of brevity found in statements like E = mc2). Of course, the nature of the...

Hmm, this thread seems to be dying a bit under the weight of trolling and personal attacks. Surely we can do better? To Inasero and Kwayera: I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the 'what is a theory?' / 'what is a law?' issues (see my posts # 7342 & 7343).

Ikea is a fairly simple option (distance aside): http://www.ikea.com/au/en/catalog/products/50099027 As suggested by others, independent furniture stores, pine shops, etc. will generally stock good quality solid timbre bookcases.

The idea that theories come and go isn't completely unreasonable; you just need some careful qualification when such statements are made. For a famous work which deals with the transience of theories see Kuhn's The structure of scientific revolutions.

It's important to understand what proving a theory involves. We're not going to obtain absolute proof. However, evidence in favour of theories can still be obtained. It's not as simple as - 'we don't have absolute proof, so we can't accept them'. To be fair, we don't have 'absolute proof'...

There's a fine line between the two. Most laws are simply theories which have been tested so rigorously that we deem it reasonable to accept them as fact (note that Newton's law of gravity is now viewed as only an approximation). As far as I know we don't have a systematised way of deciding...

The definition you provide actually says otherwise: "A theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a related set of natural or social phenomena. It originates from or is supported by experimental evidence (see scientific method). In this sense, a...

What if medical technology allows us to fully eliminate such risks?

What constitutes winning/losing?

If you have understood me then we will have to agree to disagree. Probably because I am a victim of an intellectual tradition which is strongly influenced by Aristotle / analytic philosophy (alas!). There is some merit in allowing concepts to be more fluid (in the right circumstances) but I...