UD serves as a forum in which many issues are debated and as a result form time to time, there are things that it is helpful to draw to wider attention by headling. Here, something from the objectivity and morality thread, as food for thought :
KF, 302: >>CR:
Yes, the above is not directly on the design issue, but the force of the matter should show its relevance. For, if we deal with those indoctrinated to imagine that all thought is fallible so skeptical doubts prevail, then we can see a big part of why mere evidence and reasoing will often fail to be impressive.
Something is deeply rotten and is dangerously destructive with the state of our civilisation, and we need to deal with it before things collapse. I have my doubts that as a whole we will wake up, but sufficient numbers can form a remnant that can stand in the face of palpably coming chaos. END
Absurdly false and counter to facts in evidence.
Just because we are fallible does not entail that in every case there is a residual uncertainty regarding the truth of propositions. A significant number of things are necessarily true, and a relevant subset of these are self-evidently true. For instance, it has been repeatedly shown that error exists is undeniably true, Likewise, as a conscious individual, you are incorrigibly and undeniably known to yourself to be conscious as a bare fact. and that we don’t have a list of all SET’s or an infallible rule for grounding all truths etc etc, is utterly irrelevant to what we now have in hand. The bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Your problem is that you have made a crooked yardstick your standard, a type of fallibilist skepticism and you have a major challenge in acknowledging its failures.
For example: in the above you have exerted great certainty about fallibilism, asserting a universal affirmative that is thus self-referential. It implies that fallibilism is uncertain also, so that what your claim boils down to is a policy declaration that you will treat all claims as fallible, with the convenient exception of the core elements of your system.
Now the oh the sources are fallible claim fails through the key issue of degree of reliability. A good car, calculator or computer will admittedly be fallible, but they are sufficiently reliable to be very effective and useful. Likewise, our reasoning process. The abstract possibility of error can be compatible with the reality of effective and trustworthy performance in many relevant cases.
And in the case of relevant SET’s such as are seen in the OP and thread above, we have claimed truths that are so, are warranted to be necessarily so, and that can be confirmed by insightful inspection backed up by the examination that shows the attempted denial leads to patent absurdity. Denying that error exists directly leads to the implication that it is an error to assert that error exists, so error exists is undeniable. To try to deny one’s consciousness has to use said consciousness so is self-defeating. And so forth.
So, the answer to such fallibilism is the sufficient reliability of our reason. Sufficient to function in some cases to utter certainty.
Your scheme fails the test of factual adequacy.
As for reason, your implication is, that it is a sufficiently reliable capacity to be trustworthy and respected. But, it too depends on self evident truths connected to distinct identity. For instance you are conscious and may consider the appearance of a bright red ball on a table. It matters not here whether it is instantiated physically, or is imagined, or is a computer generated graphic or is a product of electrical stimulation of a brain in a vat. The appearance is enough to distinguish ball A from rest of world ~A. The world partition is immediate:
W = {A|~A}
From this we instantly see that A is itself, also that this is distinct from ~A which is also itself. Then, no thing x in W can be A AND ~A. Any x will be A X-OR ~A. this is due to A’s distinct identity as a thing.
This is not a proof, it is an instructive explanation for the willing. For, to discuss such, at every step of the way we had to rely on distinct identity. This is the root of reasoning and it is undeniably true, forced truth.
Similarly the dichotomy marks distinct things so quantity. From that we see two-ness, thence the endless chain of the naturals necessarily following.
Going on, we can consider also how 2 + 3 = 5:
|| + ||| –> |||||
This too speaks for itself so that one who understands sees that this is necessarily and undeniably so on pain of absurdity. And yes, one may construct an axiomatic scheme that leads up to this, but that scheme is less certain than the above. And we hardly need to point to Godel’s incompleteness result to see that.
The end of all this is that you have put up a crooked yardstick as reference standard for straightness, accuracy and uprightness. It has failed the test of the naturally straight and upright plumb-line. So, now, whose report will you believe, why?
KF
PS: Red herrings on the Bible are obvious distractions intended to taint the discussion. They are readily addressed elsewhere and we need not end up in a pointless distraction. Sufficient is on the table, and unresponsiveness or evasion or clinging to absurdity will not help you or your claims.>>