[... pt2 ...]

> But ultimately, the chair can either hold you or it can't. One of those outcomes is true. Just because you can't sit on the chair doesn't mean that there isn't an absolute answer. I think you understand that after parsing your response a bit more, just wanted to call the point out specifically.

Yes, there is an absolute answer. But if you don't know it, you don't get to make one up and to then claim it's the truth, you simply don't know it, and that's it, until you do actually know it, for example by sitting down on the chair.

>> However, it is important to note that science does not proclaim that if you can't observe something, it therefore isn't.
>
> Yes! I understand this. But I do think that because science is so great at explaining so many things, people will tend to mentally fall into assumptions like 'science is the only way to prove something' or 'if science cannot prove something, I won't believe it'. This could be strawmanning though.

First of all, I want to draw a distinction: Science doesn't _prove_ anything, at all. Proof is the business of mathematics, and a proof only shows what follows logically from a given set of assumptions (called axioms by mathematicians), which doesn't say much about reality, as the assumptions are just assumptions, which might apply in reality, or they might not, mathematics doesn't care whether they do, it only shows what follows if you assume them to be true.

Science only deals with evidence, and it works by falsification, not by verification, let alone by proof. Science works by suggesting hypotheses and then trying to disprove them as hard as possible. Hypotheses that survive those attempts to disprove them for long enough are considered tentatively reliable knowledge, aka theories, not proven facts, as it is always assumed that future tries to disprove some theory might still succeed.

Now, yes, I won't believe something that science hasn't demonstrated (that is: hasn't tried reasonably hard to disprove). However, you have to be careful to not understand "science" as "by people in labcoats" here. Any method that has been demonstrated to provide reliable knowledge is scientific. If you could show that personal revelation is a path to reliable knowledge, I would count personal revelation as scientific evidence, and thus believe personal revelations. I don't dogmatically exclude any method of obtaining knowledge--all I ask for is that you demonstrate that it actually works, at which point it both becomes scientific and I will believe it. As long as I don't have anything beyond your claim that your method works, I won't believe what you say. "Unscientific" really is just a synonym for "hasn't been demonstrated to provide reliable knowledge"--and I would think it's obvious that you can't justify a claim with a method of which it is unknown whether it works.

> If I understand you correctly you're saying that, from a purely scientific standpoint, a belief in the Abrahamic God is no different than believing that we're a little simulation run by the Q Continuum. And that's a fair point.

What I am saying is that there is as much evidence for one as for the other, hence, there is no justification for believing one more or less than the other.

> But I would contend again that science is not the only way to prove something. Historical record, internal logic and narrative, testimony of others, personal experience, revelation...these can be less easy to parse and trust than a clear-cut scientific method, but that doesn't invalidate them as methods of persuasion.

Historical records are quite easy to observe, actually. But you don't get to just claim what they say, and that what they say is true. You have to demonstrate both the actual content of the actual records and that they are reliable, if you want me to believe something you supposedly found out about history. BTW, there isn't really all that much difference between historical records and any other kind of observation/measurement: The light from the screen that you are reading this on takes time to travel to your eyes, so what you see is also just a sort of historical record of the screen's content about a nanosecond earlier, just as much of the knowledge about the early development of our universe has been obtained by looking at light that has been traveling through the universe for billions of years, much of it from galaxies that probably don't even exist anymore. If you can observe it, you can use it as scientific evidence.

(Internal) logic is a somewhat difficult case, but then again it is actually not that much of a problem: It's philosophically difficult to pin down the "source of logic" (not that I'm saying that there is such a thing), but in practice, you won't find many people who will disagree with you about the most basic laws of logic, so there isn't really much need to justify them. Though it should be noted that you can empirically observe that they work, that is, if you use them, you are more successfull at navigating the world than if you don't.

Narrative is probably a source of hypotheses to test at best, testimony of other is perfectly fine scientific evidence, of course--however, the observation of the testimony is not to be confused with the observation of what the testimony is about. In order to use the former to judge the latter, you also need observations about the reliability of the testimony. Note that we know most of our (scientific) knowledge only "through testimony"--but what is important is that you in principle can go and repeat any of the experiments or observations that that testimony supposedly was based on to see whether it holds up. Personal experience is, if you will, the primary source of scientific knowledge--however, we also have figured out that it is extremely unreliable on its own, which is why science has developed elaborate methodology to avoid all the biases, confusions, and deceptions that individual personal experience tends to come with. As for revelation, see above.

But no, ultimately, there are no other ways to obtain reliable knowledge than by using methods that have been demonstrated to result in reliable knowledge, aka science.

> And perhaps that is our greatest difference. You (if I am understanding correctly; feel free to correct me) believe that belief should be withheld on things that cannot be quantified with scientific methodology. I do not ascribe to this, and this divergence puts us in pretty different places.

I would disagree on the wording. "quantified with scientific methodology" sounds too much like "by people in labcoats", and that's besides the point. Belief should be withheld until you can show that it aligns with reality.

>>>> what is moral is a scientific question >> I can see how you could start with that assumption and find ways to justify it, but I don't see how you can conclusively prove the initial premise. > I think the more interesting question is: Do you disagree and if so, why?
>
> If I understand the intent of this exchange, then I think I do disagree. Take something like eugenics; if we observed two societies doing it and one refraining, we might find benefits in both society. An individualistic society might be glad they refrained because they see the intrinsic value of each human life, regardless of their shortcomings, while a collectivistic, Spartan-like society might be glad they kept their stock strong and didn't have to do stuff like buy glasses or spend money on sick/disabled people. Point being, observation and the conclusions that are drawn from it could end up being inconclusive or relativistic depending on the underlying values of the society.

Well, sure we might find benefits in both societies, but which of the two do you think would be nicer to live in, all things considered?

Also, yes, observations could end up inconclusive, so you might have to make an arbitrary decision as to how to live. How does just making up an answer from the start and skipping the observation make things any less arbitrary than that worst case?

And do you have any evidence that morals do not depend on the underlying values of societies? That you wish they weren't doesn't make it so.

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