I think we can make the positive claim that nothing like 'gods' exist

[abaddon]

None of that has anything to do with what I said.

Your post about "Isn't the proposition of a material world supported by the material things in the world around us?" assumed the conclusion. You assumed things to be material in it.

If the substance of the world was mental instead of material, people's experience of the things in the world would be exactly the same. So you shouldn't assume the Greeks (or anyone) derived "material world" from "material things".

 

[skepticalbip]

None of that has anything to do with what I said.

Your post about "Isn't the proposition of a material world supported by the material things in the world around us?" assumed the conclusion. You assumed things to be material in it.

If the substance of the world was mental instead of material, people's experience of the things in the world would be exactly the same. So you shouldn't assume the Greeks (or anyone) derived "material world" from "material things".

Solipsism? Really?

Why are you bothering since your argument would mean that you can't know that there is anyone you are arguing with? This shit belongs in the philosophy forum where people believe navel gazing is "deep", not the religion vs. science forum.

 

[DBT]

None of that has anything to do with what I said.

Your post about "Isn't the proposition of a material world supported by the material things in the world around us?" assumed the conclusion. You assumed things to be material in it.

If the substance of the world was mental instead of material, people's experience of the things in the world would be exactly the same. So you shouldn't assume the Greeks (or anyone) derived "material world" from "material things".

Why assume the world derives from mental processes if the existence of the world precedes our perception of it, when it does not conform to our will or our wants and wishes? If the world is 'mental,' we have no control of it through mind or mental means.

We can reasonably assume that our experience of the world is mental, but not the world itself.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

None of that has anything to do with what I said.

Your post about "Isn't the proposition of a material world supported by the material things in the world around us?" assumed the conclusion. You assumed things to be material in it.

If the substance of the world was mental instead of material, people's experience of the things in the world would be exactly the same. So you shouldn't assume the Greeks (or anyone) derived "material world" from "material things".

Why assume the world derives from mental processes if the existence of the world precedes our perception of it, when it does not conform to our will or our wants and wishes? If the world is 'mental,' we have no control of it through mind or mental means.

His argument seems to be that the only thing we can know is that we can't know anything. That strikes me as being the same argument that not knowing everything means you can't know anything.

 

[DBT]

None of that has anything to do with what I said.

Your post about "Isn't the proposition of a material world supported by the material things in the world around us?" assumed the conclusion. You assumed things to be material in it.

If the substance of the world was mental instead of material, people's experience of the things in the world would be exactly the same. So you shouldn't assume the Greeks (or anyone) derived "material world" from "material things".

Why assume the world derives from mental processes if the existence of the world precedes our perception of it, when it does not conform to our will or our wants and wishes? If the world is 'mental,' we have no control of it through mind or mental means.

His argument seems to be that the only thing we can know is that we can't know anything. That strikes me as being the same argument that not knowing everything means you can't know anything.

Which seems to render everything down to faith?

That, ultimately, we have no knowledge, therefore the nature and/or existence of the world, it's objects and events are taken on faith?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

None of that has anything to do with what I said.

Your post about "Isn't the proposition of a material world supported by the material things in the world around us?" assumed the conclusion. You assumed things to be material in it.

If the substance of the world was mental instead of material, people's experience of the things in the world would be exactly the same. So you shouldn't assume the Greeks (or anyone) derived "material world" from "material things".

Why assume the world derives from mental processes if the existence of the world precedes our perception of it, when it does not conform to our will or our wants and wishes? If the world is 'mental,' we have no control of it through mind or mental means.

His argument seems to be that the only thing we can know is that we can't know anything. That strikes me as being the same argument that not knowing everything means you can't know anything.

Which seems to render everything down to faith?

That, ultimately, we have no knowledge, therefore the nature and/or existence of the world, it's objects and events are taken on faith?

But if you're not sure those objects are there, that you are even "there," then what would you have faith in? You'd have faith in faith. You wouldn't have faith, faith would have you.

Religion is weird.

 

[abaddon]

Isn't the proposition of a material world supported by the material things in the world around us?

THIS seems to me to have the conclusion in the premise. That's the ENTIRETY of what I was getting at. Everything else was only elaboration about how abstractions like "materialism" or "idealism" come later in life, when culture sticks such ideas into people's heads. My effort to specify "stick with the first person POV" was me trying to avoid any further responses to me that ignored the simple point of logic and involved yapping about either physics or metaphysics or religion.

Infants interact with people and objects in the world before they are able to form ideas or make epistemological assumptions.

They respond to whatever happens to within their vicinity without understanding the nature, scope or scale of the world around them.

First they experience, then they learn.

Yes, exactly. So maybe you didn't mean to imply, with some of your phrases in the convo with Politesse, that the Greek's materialist metaphysics was derived from an everyday experience of "material things".

We can reasonably assume that our experience of the world is mental, but not the world itself.

Yep.

I think if the materialist Greeks were reacting to a climate of Idealist philosophers, then it wasn't so simple as deriving a materialist metaphysics from the observation of "material" things or objects, as I thought you were suggesting (as if "material" is right there in the experience of phenomena themselves). "Material" is an IDEA that's tacked on top of experience. It'll feel very obvious to a modern who's been exposed to the idea all his life, throughout all his culture.

So I think the Greek materialist philosophers did something way more amazing in deriving "atoms" from their experience than is suggested by a phrase like "Isn't the proposition of a material world supported by the material things in the world around us?" when it was not so obvious-seeming to them that the "things in the world" are material.

 

[DBT]

Isn't the proposition of a material world supported by the material things in the world around us?

THIS seems to me to have the conclusion in the premise. That's the ENTIRETY of what I was getting at. Everything else was only elaboration about how abstractions like "materialism" or "idealism" come later in life, when culture sticks such ideas into people's heads. My effort to specify "stick with the first person POV" was me trying to avoid any further responses to me that ignored the simple point of logic and involved yapping about either physics or metaphysics or religion.

Is the material world to be considered a premise? We bump against its reality each and every day. So, if a premise, a proven premise.

I think if the materialist Greeks were reacting to a climate of Idealist philosophers, then it wasn't so simple as deriving a materialist metaphysics from the observation of "material" things or objects, as I thought you were suggesting (as if "material" is right there in the experience of phenomena themselves). "Material" is an IDEA that's tacked on top of experience. It'll feel very obvious to a modern who's been exposed to the idea all his life, throughout all his culture.

So I think the Greek materialist philosophers did something way more amazing in deriving "atoms" from their experience than is suggested by a phrase like "Isn't the proposition of a material world supported by the material things in the world around us?" when it was not so obvious-seeming to them that the "things in the world" are material.

The ancient Greeks, as with us all, had a physical world to bump against, interact with and test. How the world is observed to behave, its attributes and properties must be a consideration.

The proposition that the matter is composed of 'atomos' must have been based on observations of the properties of matter, that objects can be reduced, ground down, burnt, etc, to finer and finer particles....a pot becomes a pile shards when broken, shards may be smashed to pieces, the pieces ground to dust, dust to fine powder.

 

[bilby]

Isn't the proposition of a material world supported by the material things in the world around us?

THIS seems to me to have the conclusion in the premise. That's the ENTIRETY of what I was getting at. Everything else was only elaboration about how abstractions like "materialism" or "idealism" come later in life, when culture sticks such ideas into people's heads. My effort to specify "stick with the first person POV" was me trying to avoid any further responses to me that ignored the simple point of logic and involved yapping about either physics or metaphysics or religion.

Is the material world to be considered a premise? We bump against its reality each and every day. So, if a premise, a proven premise.

I think if the materialist Greeks were reacting to a climate of Idealist philosophers, then it wasn't so simple as deriving a materialist metaphysics from the observation of "material" things or objects, as I thought you were suggesting (as if "material" is right there in the experience of phenomena themselves). "Material" is an IDEA that's tacked on top of experience. It'll feel very obvious to a modern who's been exposed to the idea all his life, throughout all his culture.

So I think the Greek materialist philosophers did something way more amazing in deriving "atoms" from their experience than is suggested by a phrase like "Isn't the proposition of a material world supported by the material things in the world around us?" when it was not so obvious-seeming to them that the "things in the world" are material.

The ancient Greeks, as with us all, had a physical world to bump against, interact with and test. How the world is observed to behave, its attributes and properties must be a consideration.

The proposition that the matter is composed of 'atomos' must have been based on observations of the properties of matter, that objects can be reduced, ground down, burnt, etc, to finer and finer particles....a pot becomes a pile shards when broken, shards may be smashed to pieces, the pieces ground to dust, dust to fine powder.

Sure; But the idea of atomos is that you cannot just keep on doing this indefinitely.

Which is far from obvious, given ancient Greek knowledge and observations.

The idea of atomos strikes me as related to the concept of infinity. If you believe infinity to be impossible, then you could feel compelled to believe that there must be an endpoint for any process - and when that process is cutting stuff up, the endpoint is called 'atomos' - an idea whose foundation is the (false) belief that infinity is absurd and impossible.

If it happens to be correct, then it's right for the wrong reasons; But it's questionable whether it's correct; Atoms as we csll them today are most certainly divisible, just ask the citizens of Nagasaki.

 

[DBT]

Isn't the proposition of a material world supported by the material things in the world around us?

THIS seems to me to have the conclusion in the premise. That's the ENTIRETY of what I was getting at. Everything else was only elaboration about how abstractions like "materialism" or "idealism" come later in life, when culture sticks such ideas into people's heads. My effort to specify "stick with the first person POV" was me trying to avoid any further responses to me that ignored the simple point of logic and involved yapping about either physics or metaphysics or religion.

Is the material world to be considered a premise? We bump against its reality each and every day. So, if a premise, a proven premise.

I think if the materialist Greeks were reacting to a climate of Idealist philosophers, then it wasn't so simple as deriving a materialist metaphysics from the observation of "material" things or objects, as I thought you were suggesting (as if "material" is right there in the experience of phenomena themselves). "Material" is an IDEA that's tacked on top of experience. It'll feel very obvious to a modern who's been exposed to the idea all his life, throughout all his culture.

So I think the Greek materialist philosophers did something way more amazing in deriving "atoms" from their experience than is suggested by a phrase like "Isn't the proposition of a material world supported by the material things in the world around us?" when it was not so obvious-seeming to them that the "things in the world" are material.

The ancient Greeks, as with us all, had a physical world to bump against, interact with and test. How the world is observed to behave, its attributes and properties must be a consideration.

The proposition that the matter is composed of 'atomos' must have been based on observations of the properties of matter, that objects can be reduced, ground down, burnt, etc, to finer and finer particles....a pot becomes a pile shards when broken, shards may be smashed to pieces, the pieces ground to dust, dust to fine powder.

Sure; But the idea of atomos is that you cannot just keep on doing this indefinitely.

Which is far from obvious, given ancient Greek knowledge and observations.

The idea of atomos strikes me as related to the concept of infinity. If you believe infinity to be impossible, then you could feel compelled to believe that there must be an endpoint for any process - and when that process is cutting stuff up, the endpoint is called 'atomos' - an idea whose foundation is the (false) belief that infinity is absurd and impossible.

If it happens to be correct, then it's right for the wrong reasons; But it's questionable whether it's correct; Atoms as we csll them today are most certainly divisible, just ask the citizens of Nagasaki.

I wasn't suggesting that they got their 'atomos' model right, only that it's likely that they extrapolated from the observation that matter can be reduced to finer and finer particles.

 

[bilby]

Isn't the proposition of a material world supported by the material things in the world around us?

THIS seems to me to have the conclusion in the premise. That's the ENTIRETY of what I was getting at. Everything else was only elaboration about how abstractions like "materialism" or "idealism" come later in life, when culture sticks such ideas into people's heads. My effort to specify "stick with the first person POV" was me trying to avoid any further responses to me that ignored the simple point of logic and involved yapping about either physics or metaphysics or religion.

Is the material world to be considered a premise? We bump against its reality each and every day. So, if a premise, a proven premise.

I think if the materialist Greeks were reacting to a climate of Idealist philosophers, then it wasn't so simple as deriving a materialist metaphysics from the observation of "material" things or objects, as I thought you were suggesting (as if "material" is right there in the experience of phenomena themselves). "Material" is an IDEA that's tacked on top of experience. It'll feel very obvious to a modern who's been exposed to the idea all his life, throughout all his culture.

So I think the Greek materialist philosophers did something way more amazing in deriving "atoms" from their experience than is suggested by a phrase like "Isn't the proposition of a material world supported by the material things in the world around us?" when it was not so obvious-seeming to them that the "things in the world" are material.

The ancient Greeks, as with us all, had a physical world to bump against, interact with and test. How the world is observed to behave, its attributes and properties must be a consideration.

The proposition that the matter is composed of 'atomos' must have been based on observations of the properties of matter, that objects can be reduced, ground down, burnt, etc, to finer and finer particles....a pot becomes a pile shards when broken, shards may be smashed to pieces, the pieces ground to dust, dust to fine powder.

Sure; But the idea of atomos is that you cannot just keep on doing this indefinitely.

Which is far from obvious, given ancient Greek knowledge and observations.

The idea of atomos strikes me as related to the concept of infinity. If you believe infinity to be impossible, then you could feel compelled to believe that there must be an endpoint for any process - and when that process is cutting stuff up, the endpoint is called 'atomos' - an idea whose foundation is the (false) belief that infinity is absurd and impossible.

If it happens to be correct, then it's right for the wrong reasons; But it's questionable whether it's correct; Atoms as we csll them today are most certainly divisible, just ask the citizens of Nagasaki.

I wasn't suggesting that they got their 'atomos' model right, only that it's likely that they extrapolated from the observation that matter can be reduced to finer and finer particles.

But the whole point of atomos is that some things cannot be reduced to finer particles.

Extrapolating from the observation that things can be so reduced would refute atomos as an hypothesis.

 

[DBT]

Isn't the proposition of a material world supported by the material things in the world around us?

THIS seems to me to have the conclusion in the premise. That's the ENTIRETY of what I was getting at. Everything else was only elaboration about how abstractions like "materialism" or "idealism" come later in life, when culture sticks such ideas into people's heads. My effort to specify "stick with the first person POV" was me trying to avoid any further responses to me that ignored the simple point of logic and involved yapping about either physics or metaphysics or religion.

Is the material world to be considered a premise? We bump against its reality each and every day. So, if a premise, a proven premise.

I think if the materialist Greeks were reacting to a climate of Idealist philosophers, then it wasn't so simple as deriving a materialist metaphysics from the observation of "material" things or objects, as I thought you were suggesting (as if "material" is right there in the experience of phenomena themselves). "Material" is an IDEA that's tacked on top of experience. It'll feel very obvious to a modern who's been exposed to the idea all his life, throughout all his culture.

So I think the Greek materialist philosophers did something way more amazing in deriving "atoms" from their experience than is suggested by a phrase like "Isn't the proposition of a material world supported by the material things in the world around us?" when it was not so obvious-seeming to them that the "things in the world" are material.

The ancient Greeks, as with us all, had a physical world to bump against, interact with and test. How the world is observed to behave, its attributes and properties must be a consideration.

The proposition that the matter is composed of 'atomos' must have been based on observations of the properties of matter, that objects can be reduced, ground down, burnt, etc, to finer and finer particles....a pot becomes a pile shards when broken, shards may be smashed to pieces, the pieces ground to dust, dust to fine powder.

Sure; But the idea of atomos is that you cannot just keep on doing this indefinitely.

Which is far from obvious, given ancient Greek knowledge and observations.

The idea of atomos strikes me as related to the concept of infinity. If you believe infinity to be impossible, then you could feel compelled to believe that there must be an endpoint for any process - and when that process is cutting stuff up, the endpoint is called 'atomos' - an idea whose foundation is the (false) belief that infinity is absurd and impossible.

If it happens to be correct, then it's right for the wrong reasons; But it's questionable whether it's correct; Atoms as we csll them today are most certainly divisible, just ask the citizens of Nagasaki.

I wasn't suggesting that they got their 'atomos' model right, only that it's likely that they extrapolated from the observation that matter can be reduced to finer and finer particles.

But the whole point of atomos is that some things cannot be reduced to finer particles.

Extrapolating from the observation that things can be so reduced would refute atomos as an hypothesis.

What things can't be reduced to finer particles?

 

[bilby]

Isn't the proposition of a material world supported by the material things in the world around us?

THIS seems to me to have the conclusion in the premise. That's the ENTIRETY of what I was getting at. Everything else was only elaboration about how abstractions like "materialism" or "idealism" come later in life, when culture sticks such ideas into people's heads. My effort to specify "stick with the first person POV" was me trying to avoid any further responses to me that ignored the simple point of logic and involved yapping about either physics or metaphysics or religion.

Is the material world to be considered a premise? We bump against its reality each and every day. So, if a premise, a proven premise.

I think if the materialist Greeks were reacting to a climate of Idealist philosophers, then it wasn't so simple as deriving a materialist metaphysics from the observation of "material" things or objects, as I thought you were suggesting (as if "material" is right there in the experience of phenomena themselves). "Material" is an IDEA that's tacked on top of experience. It'll feel very obvious to a modern who's been exposed to the idea all his life, throughout all his culture.

So I think the Greek materialist philosophers did something way more amazing in deriving "atoms" from their experience than is suggested by a phrase like "Isn't the proposition of a material world supported by the material things in the world around us?" when it was not so obvious-seeming to them that the "things in the world" are material.

The ancient Greeks, as with us all, had a physical world to bump against, interact with and test. How the world is observed to behave, its attributes and properties must be a consideration.

The proposition that the matter is composed of 'atomos' must have been based on observations of the properties of matter, that objects can be reduced, ground down, burnt, etc, to finer and finer particles....a pot becomes a pile shards when broken, shards may be smashed to pieces, the pieces ground to dust, dust to fine powder.

Sure; But the idea of atomos is that you cannot just keep on doing this indefinitely.

Which is far from obvious, given ancient Greek knowledge and observations.

The idea of atomos strikes me as related to the concept of infinity. If you believe infinity to be impossible, then you could feel compelled to believe that there must be an endpoint for any process - and when that process is cutting stuff up, the endpoint is called 'atomos' - an idea whose foundation is the (false) belief that infinity is absurd and impossible.

If it happens to be correct, then it's right for the wrong reasons; But it's questionable whether it's correct; Atoms as we csll them today are most certainly divisible, just ask the citizens of Nagasaki.

I wasn't suggesting that they got their 'atomos' model right, only that it's likely that they extrapolated from the observation that matter can be reduced to finer and finer particles.

But the whole point of atomos is that some things cannot be reduced to finer particles.

Extrapolating from the observation that things can be so reduced would refute atomos as an hypothesis.

What things can't be reduced to finer particles?

Yes, exactly.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I wasn't suggesting that they got their 'atomos' model right, only that it's likely that they extrapolated from the observation that matter can be reduced to finer and finer particles.

Exactly. And language being language being language being language we can call these "abstractions" anything we want. We can call everything a combination of hard space and soft space. The Greeks were saying that all space is composed of hard space and soft space. We call the hard space materialism. Sometimes I'm confused by how people take language and objectify it. If you want to think of it that way then language itself is the ultimate abstraction.

So forget language.

Einstein said ultimately it's all about fields. I'm okay with that too.

 

[skepticalbip]

Isn't the proposition of a material world supported by the material things in the world around us?

THIS seems to me to have the conclusion in the premise. That's the ENTIRETY of what I was getting at. Everything else was only elaboration about how abstractions like "materialism" or "idealism" come later in life, when culture sticks such ideas into people's heads. My effort to specify "stick with the first person POV" was me trying to avoid any further responses to me that ignored the simple point of logic and involved yapping about either physics or metaphysics or religion.

Is the material world to be considered a premise? We bump against its reality each and every day. So, if a premise, a proven premise.

I think if the materialist Greeks were reacting to a climate of Idealist philosophers, then it wasn't so simple as deriving a materialist metaphysics from the observation of "material" things or objects, as I thought you were suggesting (as if "material" is right there in the experience of phenomena themselves). "Material" is an IDEA that's tacked on top of experience. It'll feel very obvious to a modern who's been exposed to the idea all his life, throughout all his culture.

So I think the Greek materialist philosophers did something way more amazing in deriving "atoms" from their experience than is suggested by a phrase like "Isn't the proposition of a material world supported by the material things in the world around us?" when it was not so obvious-seeming to them that the "things in the world" are material.

The ancient Greeks, as with us all, had a physical world to bump against, interact with and test. How the world is observed to behave, its attributes and properties must be a consideration.

The proposition that the matter is composed of 'atomos' must have been based on observations of the properties of matter, that objects can be reduced, ground down, burnt, etc, to finer and finer particles....a pot becomes a pile shards when broken, shards may be smashed to pieces, the pieces ground to dust, dust to fine powder.

Sure; But the idea of atomos is that you cannot just keep on doing this indefinitely.

Which is far from obvious, given ancient Greek knowledge and observations.

The idea of atomos strikes me as related to the concept of infinity. If you believe infinity to be impossible, then you could feel compelled to believe that there must be an endpoint for any process - and when that process is cutting stuff up, the endpoint is called 'atomos' - an idea whose foundation is the (false) belief that infinity is absurd and impossible.

If it happens to be correct, then it's right for the wrong reasons; But it's questionable whether it's correct; Atoms as we csll them today are most certainly divisible, just ask the citizens of Nagasaki.

I wasn't suggesting that they got their 'atomos' model right, only that it's likely that they extrapolated from the observation that matter can be reduced to finer and finer particles.

But the whole point of atomos is that some things cannot be reduced to finer particles.

Extrapolating from the observation that things can be so reduced would refute atomos as an hypothesis.

Actually it would lead to the concept of atomos if they were averse to the idea of infinities. They would observe that there are macro materials that can be broken down into smaller things, that can be broken down into smaller things, etc., etc. This would necessarily lead to a point where there were only two possibilities, either to an infinity of possible divisions or to a super small indivisible particle. Someone rejecting the idea of infinities would be left with atomos, super small indivisible particles that everything is composed of.

 

[bilby]

Someone rejecting the idea of infinities would be left with atomos, super small indivisible particles that everything is composed of.

Yes, that's what I said earlier.

But again, that's not an extrapolation of what they observe, it's a rejection of it.

 

[skepticalbip]

Someone rejecting the idea of infinities would be left with atomos, super small indivisible particles that everything is composed of.

Yes, that's what I said earlier.

But again, that's not an extrapolation of what they observe, it's a rejection of it.

The observation is that material objects can be divided to smaller and smaller parts. I is extrapolation that objects can continue to be divided beyond the smallest they can observe. It is then a philosophical conclusion that there must be a limit if the concept of infinity is rejected.

Or to start from the other end, if it is assumed that there is no infinities then observing that objects can be divided, and divided, and divided, etc. then extrapolation beyond the observable will lead to the smallest division possible....the atomos.

 

[DBT]

Isn't the proposition of a material world supported by the material things in the world around us?

THIS seems to me to have the conclusion in the premise. That's the ENTIRETY of what I was getting at. Everything else was only elaboration about how abstractions like "materialism" or "idealism" come later in life, when culture sticks such ideas into people's heads. My effort to specify "stick with the first person POV" was me trying to avoid any further responses to me that ignored the simple point of logic and involved yapping about either physics or metaphysics or religion.

Is the material world to be considered a premise? We bump against its reality each and every day. So, if a premise, a proven premise.

I think if the materialist Greeks were reacting to a climate of Idealist philosophers, then it wasn't so simple as deriving a materialist metaphysics from the observation of "material" things or objects, as I thought you were suggesting (as if "material" is right there in the experience of phenomena themselves). "Material" is an IDEA that's tacked on top of experience. It'll feel very obvious to a modern who's been exposed to the idea all his life, throughout all his culture.

So I think the Greek materialist philosophers did something way more amazing in deriving "atoms" from their experience than is suggested by a phrase like "Isn't the proposition of a material world supported by the material things in the world around us?" when it was not so obvious-seeming to them that the "things in the world" are material.

The ancient Greeks, as with us all, had a physical world to bump against, interact with and test. How the world is observed to behave, its attributes and properties must be a consideration.

The proposition that the matter is composed of 'atomos' must have been based on observations of the properties of matter, that objects can be reduced, ground down, burnt, etc, to finer and finer particles....a pot becomes a pile shards when broken, shards may be smashed to pieces, the pieces ground to dust, dust to fine powder.

Sure; But the idea of atomos is that you cannot just keep on doing this indefinitely.

Which is far from obvious, given ancient Greek knowledge and observations.

The idea of atomos strikes me as related to the concept of infinity. If you believe infinity to be impossible, then you could feel compelled to believe that there must be an endpoint for any process - and when that process is cutting stuff up, the endpoint is called 'atomos' - an idea whose foundation is the (false) belief that infinity is absurd and impossible.

If it happens to be correct, then it's right for the wrong reasons; But it's questionable whether it's correct; Atoms as we csll them today are most certainly divisible, just ask the citizens of Nagasaki.

I wasn't suggesting that they got their 'atomos' model right, only that it's likely that they extrapolated from the observation that matter can be reduced to finer and finer particles.

But the whole point of atomos is that some things cannot be reduced to finer particles.

Extrapolating from the observation that things can be so reduced would refute atomos as an hypothesis.

What things can't be reduced to finer particles?

Yes, exactly.

Well, that explains it.

 

[steve_bank]

Neither side is provable. Trying to prove a god can not exist reduces to the same type of subjective argumnts made by theists. Subjective reasoning and logic.

I'm making a positive claim per the OP. I cannot prove you are not a brain-sucking alien transported here from Andromeda but I sure can make the positive claim that you are not. Proofs only happen in mathematics because it is an axiomatic system. In common parlance there is ample "proof" that you are not a brain-sucking alien from Andromeda. That's how communication works.

That is not the OP. The OP is that science absolutely precludes the existence of a god.

That being said, I'd love to see your scientific proof I am not an ET.

 

[steve_bank]

I refereed to the Greeks and Maxwell as examples of speculation without evidence that turned out to be true.

There is also plenty of scientific speculation based in math and theory that turned out to be wrong.