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Sun 10 Jun, 2012 02:18 am
I present the following hypothesis from a strictly non-spiritual angle, and I seek only non-spiritual challenges against it.
I have been recently trying to test how far an extremely sceptical attitude can be followed through, before it causes serious reasoning problems.
When I refer to scepticism I am not talking about the actual philosophy with this title, I am just talking about a sceptical attitude.
My hypothesis:
Anything is a myth unless
'>>>>we humans can all go and see it with our own eyes<<<<<. (given the necessary glasses/contact lenses, microscopes, telescopes, transport, eligibility to use the transport, and finance for the transport)'
PLEASE CHALLENGE AS WELL AS YOU CAN!
PARTICULARLY LOOKING FORWARD TO SUGGESTIONS OF ITS LOGICAL PROBLEMS.
@ben111,
The hypothesis seems to be a non starter because "thingfulness" already implies a conceptual segmentation of what we call "reality". That segmentation implies a functional utility to the human observer, whether or not the "thing" is deemed "observable". Thus the "thingfulness" of a "god" is categorized as "mythical" for those to whom the concept has
no functionality, but it is classed as "real" for those whose self-integrity relies on its
functionality.
In other words "observability" even in principle cannot be a discriminatory tool for scepticism, whereas "functionality" (involving active perceptual set) might be.
@fresco,
Fair point. What if I replaced 'Anything' with 'Any idea'?
@ben111,
The problem lies with your criterion of "public observability". "Idea" or "concept"is better than "thing", because you need to avoid naive realism (reality divorced from observers).
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