Frank Apisa wrote:Much better minds than mine have called Popper's falsifiability principle into question -- and quite honestly, my mind no longer functions at a level where I can deep think this to a conclusion. Seems to me Joe, who is much better than I at this sort of thing, has indicated skepticism with how you are applying this principle.
Frank, I've expressed a great deal of skepticism about how the non-dualists apply
any scientific or logical principles, for the simple reason that such principles rest on a foundation of
dualism. Non-dualism cannot be proven (or demonstrated or shown or suggested or any other word you'd care to choose) by means of dualistic evidence, for the simple reason that doing so would be to attempt to reach a valid conclusion on the basis of false premises. In other words, if non-dualism posits the identity of the observer and the observed, then any evidence, based on their
non-identity, is presumably false.
Popper's falsifiability principle, for instance, is a perfect example to demonstrate what I mean. Popper, following Hume, argued that a scientific theory could never be "proven" inductively: at most, then, a "valid" theory was one that had not been falisified but that
could be. But the primary method of falsifying a theory involves inductive testing. Inductive testing, in turn, rests on
observations of evidence. Yet if there is no distinction between observer and observed, there can be no induction (indeed, there can be no deduction either). As such, the Popper falsifiability principle
only works dualistically; it can never be used to support non-dualism because non-dualism rejects its fundamental premises.
The same can be said for any of the other scientific or theoretical breakthroughs that purportedly show that dualism "doesn't work." Quantum mechanics, fuzzy logic, string theory, M-theory, relativity:
none of these makes any sense except dualistically. Using any of these as support for non-dualism, therefore, is akin to Baron Munchhausen's feat of lifting himself up by pulling on his own pigtail. It is an edifice built in mid-air.
But I'll make a deal with any or all of the "unholy trinitarians." If you can demonstrate to me how dualistic science or logic (and I would maintain that
all science and logic, as we know it, is dualistic) can be valid
non-dualistically, I will become a willing convert to the Church of Non-Dualism. To make your task even easier, you need only answer the following: how does Popper's principle of falsifiability operate in a non-dualistic universe?
Give a satisfactory answer to
that, and I will renounce dualism forever.
