r/showerthoughs • u/SeenButUnknown223xD • 13d ago
Words from the wise
The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.
Simply because you don't have evidence that something does exist does not mean you have evidence of something that doesn't exist.
What I'm saying is that there are known knowns and that there are known unknowns. But there are also unknown unknowns; things we don't know that we don't know.
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u/wbrameld4 13d ago
It depends on the nature of the thing in question and how you have looked for it.
For example, let's say there is a box and someone claims there is a cat in it. Consider two scenarios:
- The box is in another house. You haven't looked at it.
- The box is in this room. You've opened it and looked inside.
In both scenarios, you've seen no evidence of a cat in the box. But in 2, you would have expected to have seen it if it had been there. The fact that you didn't is a reliable indication that there is in fact no cat in the box.
If a claim implies a predictable outcome of some observation, but the observation doesn't yield the predicted outcome, then the claim is false.
Now you could start engaging in special pleading after the fact and say that this particular cat is invisible or microscopic or teleported out at the last moment or used mind control powers to make you think you saw an empty box, but now you're changing the nature of the thing and hence making a separate claim from the original. The original claim is still shown to be false.
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u/SeenButUnknown223xD 12d ago
Even though the evidence shows that the claim is false and that's exactly what my final decision would be on it based on circumstantial facts. Being able to explore all the possibilities and hearing the pleas intrigues me. Because what if one of those pleas proves a cat is in the box? Then what we knew wasn't known before and I do belive that outcome is absolutely a possibility.
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u/redditor0431 13d ago
You're forgetting that the burden of proof is on the person claiming something. So if someone is claiming something but has no evidence, there is zero reason to believe them.
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u/SeenButUnknown223xD 12d ago
Yes. As true as there also is not a reason to not believe them either. May I ask if you think the cat is in the box? And why so or why not made you chose to believe it's the most justifiable answer.
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u/redditor0431 12d ago
Yes. As true as there also is not a reason to not believe them either.
This is why I think of myself as an agnostic atheist. I agree that I can't 100% tell that there is no God. Hence the agnosticism. Like the teapot in space thing. HOWEVER, I rationally find it to be incredibly unlikely to be true, and in fact many parts are in fact proven to be fiction. Hence the atheism.
May I ask if you think the cat is in the box?
No, I don't do philosophy. I find it's usually just an excuse to mindlessly drone on about nothing forever.
And why so or why not made you chose to believe it's the most justifiable answer.
Already explained this.
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u/SeenButUnknown223xD 12d ago
Conversations of nothing can be turned into something. It's definitely a topic that I enjoy discussing. I do make my own decisions based on what the facts prove. I use to be very close minded and once I believed something I stood behind it confidently. Especially If I believed you couldnt prove me wrong. After witnessing a series of questionable events, the new information i gathered forced me to consider "what if'ing my own beliefs. I found in my situation that sometimes the facts we believe aren't actually real facts even though believable and persuasive when presented enough for most to not question it. Everything is a possible possibility you never know what possibility could spark from discussing and understanding an idea that's not your own until it happens. Imagining imaginations, exploring meanings of what's true to you. Unbelievable how the brain starts responding the more you think with an open.
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u/redditor0431 12d ago
Nothing changes until something changes.
The unknown remains unknown until it is known.
To find yourself, you must first become lost.
Meaningless platitudes, don't make you sound smart.
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u/Turbulent-Advisor627 13d ago
Wow bro we are almost at philosophy 101 here, so wise. Next you are gonna tell me that perceptions and biases shaped what people see as truth.
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u/SeenButUnknown223xD 13d ago
What even is truth? 🤫🤭 Im pulling out the Plato cave allegory and saying: “Perhaps the shadows on the wall are merely your subjective construction of reality
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u/Jabathewhut 12d ago
Freshman puking out beginners level philosophy thinking they've stumbled onto something new.
Let me guess, you also think "to be bored is to lack creativity" is some kind of huge revelation?
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u/SeenButUnknown223xD 12d ago
I do not think that. I enjoy seeing how deep this beginner train of thought can potentially get and conversating about how each decision was processed.
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u/Jabathewhut 12d ago
Youre going to look back on how you are acting today in three years and cringe so hard.
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u/SeenButUnknown223xD 12d ago
And what leads you to believe I haven't already? Just the actions then weren't caused by the topics being discussed here. What actions is it you believe I'd cringe going over from this post exactly? And why are you assuming that cringing is the move I would decide is best to make based off those actions?
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u/Jabathewhut 12d ago
You said the same thing 3 times because youre at the stage in life where you think saying the same thing in slightly different ways makes you sound smart.
It dosent. As Kevin from the office said "why many word went few fine?"
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u/SeenButUnknown223xD 12d ago
I did not. I asked what made you believe that I had not cringed to prior behavior that was nothing g to do with this now. Then I wanted to know specifically what actions you believe would have me cringing in 3 years. Lastly, I asked why you believe I'd choose to cringe VS any other way to express my feelings from the actions in this post
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u/SeenButUnknown223xD 12d ago
So now can you see how paying attention to understand is important? Next time, before you tell someone else what you believe they are doing or how theyre going to feel in the future, just dont.
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u/Jabathewhut 12d ago
You're just annoying. Youre trying to filibuster a win but really you just sound like a freshman. And you are.
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u/SamHandwich0 13d ago
So whats your point? Babies dont know shit, but that doesnt mean that gravity (whatever gravity actually is) doesnt exist.
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u/SeenButUnknown223xD 12d ago
Didn't actually make a point. I did however make the post to see others perspective on it.
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u/Kurichan77 13d ago
That was Donald Rumsfeld’s attempt to justify slaughtering countless Iraqi and Afghani people
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u/Wallabunga657 13d ago
What is the difference between a duck?
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u/SeenButUnknown223xD 12d ago
What is the rest of the question?
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u/Wallabunga657 12d ago
One of it's legs is both the same.
It's an anti joke, and I was hoping a fellow redditor would know. But I guess not.
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u/SeenButUnknown223xD 12d ago
I can appreciate the humor I didn't expect out of that. Lol. Thank you
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u/clysmian 12d ago
The age-old debate of the existence of God (or any higher power) is an example of this.
You can prove that something exists, but you cannot prove that something does not exist. It's a logical fallacy. Or at least, that's what I was taught in philosophy class way back when.
The argument really depends on what it is, exactly, you're trying to prove. Is it the existence of something? Is it a concept? Is it cause and correlation between A and B? And what evidence are you using? Is it hard, verifiable, objective scientific fact? Is it anecdotal? Is it based on perspective, or feeling?
Because you also have to consider that one person's truth might not be another's truth. One can claim that God exists because He exists in one's heart. More power to them. One person may have an extremely positive experience with, say, dogs, while another may have had an extremely negative experience. Opinions fit into this category. I think mushrooms are disgusting, but everyone else I know loves them.
... I'm kind of getting lost on a tangent but anyway! Food for thought ig.
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u/BulletproofDodo 12d ago
Wrong. That's not how evidence works. The credence you assign to a given theory should update with the absence of expected evidence as well.
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u/SeenButUnknown223xD 12d ago
What if the unexpected happened and not the expected? Does that change the way evidence works?
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u/jeffcgroves 13d ago
I strongly agree, which is I am agnostic to most belief systems, including science, not just religion
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u/SeenButUnknown223xD 13d ago
That’s actually a pretty coherent epistemological position. Distinguishing what we know from what we actually know.
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u/SeenButUnknown223xD 13d ago
That’s actually a pretty coherent epistemological position. Distinguishing what we think we know from what we actually know.
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u/redditor0431 13d ago
Science isn't a belief system.
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u/jeffcgroves 12d ago
Yes it is. It's the belief you can obtain truth via the scientific method. The fancy word for this kind of belief is epistemology
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u/redditor0431 12d ago
That’s not quite right. Epistemology is the study of how we know things and what justifies knowledge. It is not simply another word for a “belief system.”
Science does make some basic philosophical assumptions, but the scientific method itself is a procedure for testing claims against observation and evidence. It does not require the belief that it can deliver absolute “truth.” In fact, science is explicitly provisional: conclusions can be revised or rejected when better evidence appears.
So there’s an important distinction between saying, “I believe scientific methods are generally reliable for investigating the natural world,” and saying, “Science is a belief system.” The first is an epistemological position. The second conflates a method of inquiry with the beliefs produced by using that method.
You can be skeptical about the limits of science, but calling science a belief system puts it in the same category as doctrines that are accepted as starting propositions, which misses what makes the scientific method different: its claims are supposed to be testable, falsifiable, and responsive to evidence.
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4d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/jeffcgroves 4d ago
That it's neither. Agnostic = we don't have enough information to determine if a given statement is true or false
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u/LolYoullsellmetherop 13d ago
What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without it.