Gees

Kristalris; If we are going to continue this discussion, it must be between us and not include negative comments regarding other member's abilities. I do not always agree with YodaP, but have read enough of that member's posts to come to the conclusion that YodaP has a good mind and an understanding of philosophy. So I have no wish to debate the merits of any third-party member's posts, and would like to keep this between us. The problem that I have with your argument is that you seem to interchange the word "probability" with the word "possibility". They are not the same. Now if the original statement was, "If I can imagine something that fits within the parameters of science and Bayes probability theorem, it is possible!". Then I might have to agree that this is possible, but that is not the case. The original statement, "If I can imagine it, it is possible" sets the parameters of "possible" under the parameters of "imagine". Imagination has no parameters. And according to you, imagination is garbage and does not fall within the rules of Bayes Theorem, as follows: So I don't agree that Bayes Theorem even applies in this case. I certainly hope you will forgive me for this observation, but it appears as though solipsism, the religious "God" idea, and Bayes Theory have something in common. They have each taken an idea that they "imagine" to be true and applied logic to this idea in order to rationalize it and make it appear to be real. This is not reality. (chuckle) Lucky for me, I am not a scientist. I am a philosopher. Did you notice that this is the General Philosophy forum, not the General Science forum? The fact that the formula requirments dictate a testable hypothesis indicate that the formula is self serving and somewhat circular, so I would question it's ability to find truth. This formula seems to be a statistical game of probabliities, designed to predict reality, but it does not define reality -- or truth. G

Hello Kristalris; I very much enjoyed the video that you presented, and got a lot of laughter out of it. Thank you. I have never broached this subject before, but would like to take a stab at it, so please consider the following. It may well be true that a "hypothesis is held to be true until falsified", but it is also true that a hypothesis must be testable in order to falsify it. So is "possible" testable? The problem with the word "possible" is that it has no parameters, so only the consequence of that possibility, in hindsight, is testable after it becomes real. So one is not really testing "possible". Is "imagination" testable? Only after it becomes realized in reality. So I don't see how you can call this a hypothesis, as it is not testable. Now one could say that "if you can imagine it, it is possible" is a truism. But again, truisms are always true, so how could one know that it is always true? In hindsight, many things that were thought impossible became possible through someone's imagination, but not all things imagined became possible, so we can not call this a truism. Because the statement begins with the word "If", it implies a relationship between "imagine" and "possible"; "if this, then that". There are two ways to look at this, either "imagine" is a prerequisite to "possible", or "imagine" causes "possible" -- neither are true. Rain turns into snow because of temperature, not imagination, so there are things that are possible that do not require the prerequisite of imagining. Imagination is thought and is produced by the rational aspect of mind, so it can not actually cause a change in reality. Thought has no power over reality, so imagination, on it's own, does not cause anything to be possible. Think of imagination as you would a tool, like a hammer. A hammer is a very handy tool to have when building a house, but a hammer can not build a house. Imagination is a very handy tool to have when considering possibilities, but imagination can not cause those possibilities to become real. So I see this as a word game that has nothing to do with reality or logic. The only other way to view this is to say that "imagination" actually causes reality, which is the solipsist's view. Solipsism is nonsense. imo Do you disagree? G

YodaP; Not even close. I was first attracted to your title because I just spent 15 pages in the thread, Supernatural, explaining that imagination is a poor tool to use in philosophy. But I don't think anyone was really listening. I do think that my explanation that rationalization can not be used to find an unknown was understood, but I don't think that people realized that rationalization is just logic applied to imagination. People take an unknown, imagine what they think it is, then create logical steps to whatever they have imagined--and they call this rational. The problem here being that the rational part of the mind is the only part that knows how to lie. It seems to me that imagination is a coping ability. We take what we don't know or don't understand and use our imaginations to make it more palatable. But that does not make it more real. Philosophy studies what is real, not what is palatable. I do agree with you that math is a definite way to find and establish truth, and suspect that this is because math evolves from innate understanding. The innate understanding of more and less is at the root of math, but this is not the only innate understanding--not the only available truth. I study consciousness and life, so I do a lot of work on awareness and emotion, which are also innate understandings. If you can supply me with a formula that explains awareness and/or emotion it would be wonderful. Until you do, I will have to simply rely on the old tools of observation, experience, logic and reason. G

Hi YodaP; I really enjoyed your post right up to the last paragraph, then I wondered. Are you talking about me? G