I have a feeling there's only like 5 people left on this forum who actually read the whole thing. As in, all the 50 pages or however many it was.
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Yea, it was a ton of freaking pages but all good stuff on both sides of the argument. I would've kept it going but I needed Shadow's expertise in Biology and he ended up winning the N.Y. lottery and left me at this God forsaken forum to deal with people like you alone. :cheeky:
A whole world of pain and frustration, if you're unlucky enough to step on the wrong one, I mean.Quote:
Originally Posted by stormcrow
But seriously. Nothing...because there's no proof that invisible nails exist, right?
Maybe it's just a passing fancy, but for some reason that seems vaguely relevant...
Quote:
stormcrow:
After [all] what is the difference between an invisible nail and a non-existent one?
No - Stormcrow forgot to mention the nail is also intangible and makes no sound when dropped on surfaces, and no marks if dropped in soft dirt or anything similar. Here's the original context:Quote:
acatalephobic:
A whole world of pain and frustration, if you're unlucky enough to step on the wrong one, I mean.
Of course all this is not proof that the invisible (nail, dragon, man, whatever) does nor exist, or that it does. It simply means that no proof either way is possible. hence belief in such an invisible intangible thing is solely faith. Belief in something that is testable with consistent results is not faith.Quote:
The Dragon In My Garage
by Carl Sagan
"A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage"
Suppose (I'm following a group therapy approach by the psychologist Richard Franklin) I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!
"Show me," you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle -- but no dragon.
"Where's the dragon?" you ask.
"Oh, she's right here," I reply, waving vaguely. "I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon."
You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.
"Good idea," I say, "but this dragon floats in the air."
Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.
"Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless."
You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.
"Good idea, but she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick." And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.
Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so. The only thing you've really learned from my insistence that there's a dragon in my garage is that something funny is going on inside my head. You'd wonder, if no physical tests apply, what convinced me. The possibility that it was a dream or a hallucination would certainly enter your mind. But then, why am I taking it so seriously? Maybe I need help. At the least, maybe I've seriously underestimated human fallibility. Imagine that, despite none of the tests being successful, you wish to be scrupulously open-minded. So you don't outright reject the notion that there's a fire-breathing dragon in my garage. You merely put it on hold. Present evidence is strongly against it, but if a new body of data emerge you're prepared to examine it and see if it convinces you. Surely it's unfair of me to be offended at not being believed; or to criticize you for being stodgy and unimaginative -- merely because you rendered the Scottish verdict of "not proved."
Imagine that things had gone otherwise. The dragon is invisible, all right, but footprints are being made in the flour as you watch. Your infrared detector reads off-scale. The spray paint reveals a jagged crest bobbing in the air before you. No matter how skeptical you might have been about the existence of dragons -- to say nothing about invisible ones -- you must now acknowledge that there's something here, and that in a preliminary way it's consistent with an invisible, fire-breathing dragon.
Now another scenario: Suppose it's not just me. Suppose that several people of your acquaintance, including people who you're pretty sure don't know each other, all tell you that they have dragons in their garages -- but in every case the evidence is maddeningly elusive. All of us admit we're disturbed at being gripped by so odd a conviction so ill-supported by the physical evidence. None of us is a lunatic. We speculate about what it would mean if invisible dragons were really hiding out in garages all over the world, with us humans just catching on. I'd rather it not be true, I tell you. But maybe all those ancient European and Chinese myths about dragons weren't myths at all.
Gratifyingly, some dragon-size footprints in the flour are now reported. But they're never made when a skeptic is looking. An alternative explanation presents itself. On close examination it seems clear that the footprints could have been faked. Another dragon enthusiast shows up with a burnt finger and attributes it to a rare physical manifestation of the dragon's fiery breath. But again, other possibilities exist. We understand that there are other ways to burn fingers besides the breath of invisible dragons. Such "evidence" -- no matter how important the dragon advocates consider it -- is far from compelling. Once again, the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis, to be open to future physical data, and to wonder what the cause might be that so many apparently sane and sober people share the same strange delusion.
I read the Demon-Haunted World almost a year ago and I still get chills when reading the Dragon in my Garage chapter. It is still profound and relevant to this day. I interpreted it a bit differently than Darkmatters did however. I have always interpreted it to be an affirmation of strong materialism and empiricism that asserts that if something is not testable in a quantifiable way, it does not exist. This sounds like a fool-hardy arrogant assertion but let me explain. If there is no proof of an objects (dragon) ontological existence then we have no reason whatsoever to believe that it does exist. If it cannot interact with physical matter in any way knowledge of its properties is unknowable and is therefore useless (in the way that it cannot significantly impact our world). When Sagan asks "what is the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all?" it is a loaded question because it assumes the answer, there is no difference and we have no reason to believe that there is. I'm sure Taosaur is wincing as he reads this.
Most of the time I read the whole thread before posting (as painful as reading this one was) but yes many people do not. And Ne-yo you should bump it.
I should but I don't have that much time on my hands as I used to, that and without Shadow and his brainy sister's help, I could not possibly handle all of the arguments from the opposing side (you guys) if I wanted to. :P
Feel free to bump it if you guys like but I haven't really seen any theist on the forum arguing the case against abiogenesis and the holidays are approaching so my time logging into DV's will be very limited. Perhaps Really would entertain it, he's a smart cookie. :wink:
You can easily prove that the dragon isn't real through a bit of logic though. Because of the dragon is infinitely elusive, then the person has no way of knowing the dragon is there. And if they don't have any way to know it is there, then you know they are lying. You can also have a lie detector test with one of the newer brain scanning technologies(one that actually looks at your brain not one of them old style ones that read stress), and watch as they lying centers of their brain light up every time they tell their story.
Enough! Enough! I clearly outlined why such a baseless claim of disbelief is a faith. Speak no longer of such semantics in front of me again.