The Warfare Is Mental

On Falsifiability: What Exactly Is Pseudoscience Anyways?

September 18, 2008

It's pretty simple to assume what pseudoscience means, right? "Pseudo" means fake, and "science" means, well…science. I didn't need to consult a dictionary for that. I decided to obtain a working definition of the word pseudoscience because upon going to use it, I realized I had only my personal interpretation of the word to draw upon, which I wanted to assure was correct and not skewed.

I will say that in the argument over pseudoscience, all roads lead to falsifiability. In general, any statement can fall into three categories:

1. A statement which is falsifiable, but has not yet been falsified;
2. A statement which is falsifiable, and has been shown to be false;
3. A statement which is not falsifiable.

Put simply, unfalsifiable statements or falsifiable statements that have been proven false are not scientific statements. For this reason, I currently don't think that creationism or intelligent design qualify as scientific ideas. There might be an isolated component in any form of either idea that is falsifiable, however. For example, the various forms of the moon-dust argument.

Atheism And Theism – Both Logically Flawed

June 16, 2008

Many and possibly all traditional expressions of theism and atheism suffer from inherent logical flaws. The idea is in general accord with a debate I’m currently re-hashing with myself over whether a successful ontological argument exists, or whether one is even capable of existing, and if yes or no, then also on what grounds. My area of expertise is not philosophy or logic, and the presupposition in this particular argument is that I correctly understand the terms I use to support my thesis.

On The Nature Of Truth

May 16, 2008

Truth almost escapes definition. Rather, it is what is. Houghton Mifflin defines truth as, “conformity to fact or actuality; fidelity to an original or standard; reality; actuality.” Thus it can be said with confidence that the truth regarding any particular event can only be what actually exists or happened, and the truth of any belief can only be its correspondence to that reality. Any given statement regarding life or history can either be true or false, fact or opinion, and while some are easily verifiable, others are not. Especially in the arenas of religion, politics and science, most facts are buried under tons of corporate agenda, human ambition and political motive.

On Philosophical Relativism

March 12, 2008

It is common knowledge that certain behaviors we call ‘laws’ govern the physical workings of the universe and Earth. Water is always composed of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. Should this mixture vary, we no longer have water but something else. As long as we are under subordination of Earth’s atmosphere, anything you throw in the air will come down, hence, the law of gravity. Now be sure that if I am saying objective reality exists independent of humans, this is not the same as saying humans cannot influence objective reality. If I take a gun and kill somebody, I have just shaped objective reality. But try as I might afterwards, I could not ever shape or change the objective reality that I killed somebody. In these instances we easily grasp the concept of a reality that is what it is regardless of our beliefs, attitudes or assumptions, yet the minute we enter the realm of religion, morality or God all logic seems to go out the window.

On Making A Living

June 2, 2007

In order to live we must in some way or another acquire the basic physical necessities of food, water and shelter. In other words, we must work. Once these have been attained in sufficient measure, our focus can shift to the more complex task of meeting the necessities of intellectual, emotional and spiritual matters. It seems the norm to despise one’s work, and this is unfortunate. Work should be a labor of love and an extension of personality. So many people remain unhappily stuck in positions they absolutely hate, yet they endure it, waiting for that golden future of retirement. The sad truth is that most people don’t love what they do with their lives, either in work or in habit. We are brought up to think of work as a terrible burden of necessity; therefore we never awaken to the fact that it can be an extension of our unique personalities.

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