Chaosman, you are talking about "epistemology" or "the theory of knowledge". This is philosophy. I think every single poster here has freely and openly and willingly admitted that we have to assume that we are not brains in a jar and that things in the future will continue to happen as things in the past have. Your open-mindedness is a huge amount of fun when talking about "what do we actually know?" from a philosophical standpoint, but is exactly irrelevant when talking about science.

The activity of science ignores that question. In order for science to work, reality must exist (we aren't brains in a jar) and things must keep happening now as they have in the past (the conductors in my computer need to still be conductors one second from now). Both of these things are necessary assumptions. Once I say I'm talking about science, that means I've made these assumptions. The assumptions might very well be wrong; there is absolutely no way of knowing this. It's a simple fact of life we all must live with.

I, and waffle, and OldCrow find it distracting to bring up epistemology when trying to discuss science. It's simply outside of the realm of subjects accessible by science. I don't discount the possibility that we are brains in a jar; I simply admit it and move on.

Think of it as a sliding scale of likelyhood if you are uncomfortable with absolutes. It is highly unlikely that a)a teapot revolves around the sun in space, b) there is an invisible pink unicorn that rules the world, c) that the guy in the institution who says he is Napolean somehow actually is the former French general. For all intents and purposes it is so close to impossible that rounding up does not actually hurt even if we can't prove a negative. Likelwise evolution, the fact that Napoleon died in Elba and led a disastrous campaign against the Russians and the existence of rheas in South America far so far along the scale of likelyhood that we can safely state that they are facts.

The whole brain in a jar... it is extremely unlikely, even if we can't discount it entirely. Personally I consider God unlikely too, very unlikely, but I reserve judgement on how likely his or her or its existence is.

Fair enough. I'll stop bringing it up then. lol. Well, ....I will try very hard not to. I do get a little philosophical at times but there is no reason for me to derail an arguement or thread based on remote possibilities no matter how fun it might be. I withdraw my philosophical statements and accept the constraints of science as we know it and reality as we know it.

The "brain in a jar" theory is a poor argument in the God v. Science debate, anyway, because both sides operate on the assumption that our senses are accurate. Science requires observation and causality; so does religion. Otherwise you could just as easily assume that the Bible is a fake bit of programming as you could fossils.

If you really want to have some fun with this, read up on Bell's Inequality. Understand it. Understand the implications. Then we'll talk about how silly the brain in a jar argument is compared to a true mindf**k.

Damn you, Waffle! I'll have a headache all afternoon after trying to understand that stuff.

I think the gist of it, though, is that thanks to quantum mechanics, causality may be trickier than we thought; things might happen for non-obvious reasons (ie., particle A may alter its properties based on what particle B does millions of miles away) that we won't know unless we're looking for them.

Still less of a blow to science than "brain in a jar", because if we can't trust our senses, we don't really have anything, do we?

I made it in about 3 sentances and gave up. I'll stick to opinions and theories I have developed or heard of and leave the heavy thinking to you guys. lol

Not necessarily distracting, after all falsification itself came out of Popper's epistemological philosophy of science; more that most epistemology fails to add value to the discussion. Epistemology is like absinthe...there's a time and place for them. Ususally only around people you know really well.

And the brain in the jar, like the solipcist argument, doesn't just fail to add value, it actually removes it. It may be entirely possible that I'm a brain in a jar, or plugged into an organic computer matrix, or just that the whole world is my personal dream. But if so, then what possible meaning can there be to anything? All the varieties of solipcism are only about a half-step from nihilism.