Re: What is the point to life?
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Originally posted by Ran-Taro:
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Originally posted by Lord Chane:
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Originally posted by Ran-Taro:
In the absence of any evidence of something existing, it is a logical presumption that it probably doesn't exist.
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Your statement probably needs some clarification. I'm not sure what you consider as "evidence of something existing". And when you say "presumption" I don't know if you mean it's human nature not to believe in things we cannot prove or something else. Without those clarifications though, taking what you said as it's written, then I'd have to disagree. In the absence of any evidence of something existing, I'd say the logical presumption is that there is not enough data to support a conclusion. Let's see if I can give an example that supports my statement. A thousand years ago there was no evidence that the planet Pluto existed. Actually the evidence was there, but humanity did not have the ability to see it. So for them there was effectively no evidence. Using your statement then, in the absence of any evidence of the planet Pluto, it is a logical presumption that it probably doesn't exist. Yet it does exist, as we later discovered when we learned to see the evidence of it's existance. Therefore, we can see that the lack of evidence does not in fact support the presumption that it probably does not exist. As far as the existance of an after-life goes, I am not aware of any evidence to support the existence of such a thing. But at the same time I am not aware of any evidence that there is not one. The fact that we cannot prove the issue one way or the other does not in fact support any conclusion other than there is no evidence one way or the other. If we accept that as true, then a belief either way becomes a matter of faith and not a logically supportable conclusion. However, to quote Dennis Miller, "But then again I could be wrong." Perhaps you'd like to explain your statement a bit further and give some sort of example to bear out your thought. 
Yes, you are entirely correct. That something probably isn't correct certainly doesn't mean that it isn't.
However, your example is skewed by the benefit of hindsight. This is because we now know Pluto does exist. However for an ancient person to say that Pluto did exist without any evidence, that would (from their perspective) simply be wild speculation. How often is wild speculation true? Sometimes, but not very often.
The more complex the speculation, the more variables there are to be incorrect, hence less likley it is to be true. So the most simple explanation is more likley the correct one.
To put this in context. I could say to you now that there are ten exactly planets orbiting Alpha Centuri, three of which contain sentient life, but there is no evidence of this. How likley do you think this is to be true?
The truth is that it is unlikley but not impossible. We have no evidence to disprove it, yet it is still probably not true. This is simply because it would involve lots of complex variables to interact in a certain way to be true, which (probablility wise) is unlikley to conform to an arbitary guess of mine.
If we went to Alpha Centuri and found that I was actually right - this still does not change the fact that I was unlikely to be right when I made the guess.
It is the same as rolling a die. You can say you are going to roll a '6' before you do so, but you only have a one in six chance of being right. So you are probably wrong. If you do roll a six, it doesn't change the fact that, before you rolled the die, you were probably going to be wrong in your guess.
If you roll two dice, you add to the complexity, and your chance of being right about rolling a six goes down in direct proportion. Hence the more complex an unfounded speculation, the less likley it is to be true.
In my opinion the simpler explanation is that when we die, we are dead. It is more complex and unfounded (IMHO) to say that there is an afterlife. Hence the latter requires faith, whilst the former does not.
I wrote this in a hurry, so I hope it makes sense.
Yes, it makes sense. But I still don't agree with the original statement. Let's go back to that for a moment. The assertion was "In the absence of any evidence of something existing, it is a logical presumption that it probably doesn't exist." I don't believe that's a logical conclusion. If we are talking probability, then the absence of evidence may mean that there's a low probability of existence, but as you already admitted it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. However to even calculate the probability of a given statement being true you have to have some information and that information constitutes evidence in and of itself. Going back to your example about predicting a die roll ahead of time, you can only calculate the probability if you know how many sides the dies has. My point is that you cannot calculate a probability when there is no data to base the calculation on. I believe the assertion also violates the laws of algebra. Look at the assertion as a boolean statement. You can evaluate it as X = Y. If so, then Not X = Not Y. In other words, if the absence of evidence means that the hypothetical item doesn't exist, then the absence of evidence that the hypothetical item doesn't exist must mean that it does exist. The two cancel each other out and therefore no logical conclusion can be made because there is no data to support a conclusion either way.
Yes, my example of Pluto is skewed by the benefit of hindsight. But that was exactly the point I was trying to make. Following the assertion that was given, the statement that Pluto does not exist would have been "logical" if it had been made in the middle ages but would not be so now. I believe that shows a flaw in the assertion as demonstrated by the fact that Pluto does exist. A person making the statement in the middle ages simply did not have enough data to form a conclusion. Down through history there have been lots of statements made that were later proven to be wrong. That's because they were themselves wild speculations made in the absence of supporting evidence. Without supporting data any speculation, whether for or against, constitutes wild speculation. Is there evidence of an afterlife? No, not that I'm aware of. Is there evidence that there is not an afterlife? No, not that I'm aware of. How then can I draw a conclusion? If there's no evidence either way, then a belief in either has to consitute faith and faith is not a logical conclusion. It is an emotion, a desire for something to be as we want it. I see logic in this context as an outcome that can be consistently arrived at based on a given statement. For example, if a person is dead, then they are not alive. Since the assertion made seems likely to produce as many wrong conclusions as it does correct ones, I can't see it as logical.
I see the Alpha Centauri example as something entirely different. It's an exercise in probability. The liklihood of you guessing the correct number of planets and the number of those that contain sentient life is indeed very low. Probably about the same as me picking all the lottery numbers. At the same time the assertion would mean that there is probably no sentient life anywhere else in the universe. After all there is no evidence of it, therefore it probably doesn't exist. This despite the fact that in this instance probability is in our favor. With billions upon billions of stars, countless millions of galaxies, it is inconceivable that we are alone.
Even though I don't agree with the statement made I appreciate such discussions. I've spent all week thinking about this topic. Very enjoyable.
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