Thus Schlick says: ‘... a genuine statement must be capable of conclusive verification’ and Waismann says still more clearly: ‘If there is no possible way to determine whether a statement is true then that statement has no meaning whatsoever. For the meaning of a statement is the method of its verification.’ Now in my view there is no such thing as induction. Thus inference to theories, from singular statements which are ‘verified by experience’ (whatever that may mean), is logically inadmissible. Theories are, therefore, never empirically verifiable.
"I mean, we're only human beings-and what's a human being? A weak, ugly, sinful creature, born that way, rotten in his bones-so humility is the one virtue he ought to practice. He ought to spend his life on his knees, begging to be forgiven for his dirty existence. When a man thinks he's good-that's when he's rotten. Pride is the worst of all sins, no matter what he's done."
"But if a man knows that what he's done is good?"
"Then he ought to apologize for it."
"To whom?"
"To those who haven't done it."
" I... I don't understand."
"Of course you don't. It takes years and years of study in the higher reaches of the intellect. Have you ever heard of The Metaphysical Contradictions of the Universe, by Dr. Simon Pritchett?"
Sayfa 248 - Tehlikeli kafalarKitabı okudu
Çoklu evrenler (multiverse)
#53353603
Let us recognize these speculations for what they are. They are not physics, but in the strictest sense,
metaphysics. There is no purely scientific reason to believe in an ensemble of universes. By construction these other worlds are unknowable by us. A possible explanation of equal intellectual
respectability – and to my mind greater economy and elegance – would be that this one world is the way it is, because it is the creation of the will of a Creator who purposes that it should be so.
How can we be “free” as conscious agents if everything that we consciously intend is caused by events in our brain that we do not intend and of which we are entirely unaware? We can’t. To say that “my brain” decided to think or act in aparticular way, whether consciously or not, and that this is the basis for my freedom, is to ignore the very source of our belief in free will: the feel-ing of conscious agency. People feel that they are the authors of their thoughts and actions, and this is the only reason why there seems to be a problem of free will worth talking about.
The fact is, however, that absolutely no one is really ready to argue radical relativism consistently. For one thing, it is a self-contradictory claim, since radical relativism, by its own criterion, would be only one possible position, no more valid than any other claimed universalism. For another thing, in practice we all fall back on some limits to what we are willing to accept as legitimate behavior, since otherwise we would be living in a truly anarchic world, one that endangered our survival in an immediate way. Or if there is anyone who is truly willing to argue the position consistently, the rest of us would probably label such persons psychotic and imprison them for our safety. I therefore rule out radical relativism as a plausible position since I do not believe anyone really means it.
