
Originally Posted by
Zargabaath
This is like the agnostics's view of something: I can't prove that it is true but you can't prove that it is false so the only proper conclusion is: no one knows and no one can know one way or the other. There are a few problems with that logic.
1.) The user allows the arbitrary into the realm of human cognition; they treat arbitrary claims as ideas proper to consider, discuss, evaluate - then says "I don't know," instead of dismissing the arbitrary out of hand.
2.) The onus-of-proof issus: a person demands proof of a negative in a context where there is no evidence for the postive. "It is up to you," they say, "to prove that a higher power or the 12th moon of Saturn did not cause "x" ".
3.) The person would say, "Mabye these things will one day be proved." In other words, they assert possibilities or hypotheses without a jot of evidential basis.
This logic treats the arbitrary claims as meriting cognitive consideration and epistemological respect; the arbitrary on par with the rational and evidentially supported. This is the ultimate epistemological egalitarian: it equates the groundless and the proved.
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