| json_metadata | "{"app":"musing/1.1","appTags":["life"],"appCategory":"life","appTitle":"Is there reincarnation since it has not been proven otherwise?","appBody":"<p>That is incorrect reasoning.</p>\n<p>The incorrect reasoning is known as fallacy.</p>\n<p>These fallacies are classified into different types, and this in particular is known as \"Argument ad ignorantiam\" or \"call to ignorance\"</p>\n<p> Argument ad ignorantiam - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>Basically, this kind of argument goes to say that if something is 'not known', if it has not been proven, then it is a lie. And clearly it is an argument that can be used for anything, not only for reincarnation or religious aspects.</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>That type of reasoning is incorrect, it is not a valid procedure to arrive at the truth. This can be seen in different ways.</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>For example, when something has not been proven, the opposite has not been proven and this means that with that argument one thing could be proved and the other, which is a contradiction.</p>\n<p>In the example of reincarnation: it has not been proven that it does not exist, but it has not been proven to exist either ... therefore, using the same argument weapon, we could say that if it has not been proven to exist, reincarnation does not exist. We have proven that it exists and also that it does not exist, and both can not be, so something fails, and what fails is the argumentative procedure, the reasoning, which is incorrect, is a fallacy.</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>Another way to see what is wrong would be to see examples where it fails.</p>\n<p>For example, the so-called Fermat's Last Theorem was unproven for several centuries. He affirmed that there was no natural number n greater than 2 that could fulfill that</p>\n<p>xn + yn = zn</p>\n<p>being x, y, z positive integers too.</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>According to the reasoning, someone could say that since the opposite had not been proven, there would be an n greater than 2 that would satisfy the equation.</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>But it turns out that this way of thinking would lead to a lie, because then it proved impossible, that there were no such numbers that could fulfill it.</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p><strong>In short:</strong> if something has not been proven, then you do not know ... but not knowing does not imply that it is true, or that it is false with security, that you do not know that, that you do not know for sure.</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>In addition, as David Sánchez said, the opposite has been proven ... (or to a certain extent, based on certain more or less solid premises). Therefore, the argument would be doubly incorrect ... on the one hand, incorrect as a general argument, it is a fallacy; and, on the other hand, incorrect because it starts from a premise that is false.</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p><strong>Example</strong>:</p>\n<p>\"It has not been proven that the number of prime numbers is infinite, so as has not been proven otherwise, this proves with certainty that prime numbers is a finite set\"</p>\n<p>This is completely false ... First, because when something has not been demonstrated it is not known, and if you do not know, you can not affirm a thing or the opposite. And, secondly, because it has been shown that the cousins are infinite, a Greek showed it over 2000 years ago ... And it can be demonstrated in a relatively simple way.</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>In general, it is often said that 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence' or that the burden of proof falls on the person who says something and not on the person who says he does not know. If someone affirms that reincarnation exists, it is he who must provide the evidence that leads to that affirmation and not the other way around ... it is not worth accusing others that they have no evidence to the contrary.</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>The fallacies should be taught in schools to 10-year-old children, to learn to reason from an early age and not to be deceived.</p>\n<p>I strongly recommend reading more about fallacies, to those who do not know them.</p>\n<p>Here you have a good list of them.</p>\n<p>Annex: Cognitive biases - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p><strong>Some of the most famous:</strong></p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>Ad hominem: to assure that something is false because it is said by someone in particular ... that is, to discredit the person who says it and to conclude that as one who says it \"is not to be trusted\" then it must surely be false. Regardless of who says it, regardless of whether it is really reliable or not, you have to prove that something is false, it is not enough to resort to whoever said it.</p>\n<p>Appeal to authority: similar to the previous, but to ensure that something is true, also by the person who says it, in this case a reputable person, an authority ... As stated before, whoever says it is not enough proof, there must be a valid reasoning.</p>\n<p>Cum hoc, ergo propter hoc: \"with this, therefore because of this\" ... The phrase that invalidates that is 'correlation does not imply causality'. Something may be accompanied by something else but that does not imply that it is the cause.</p>\n<p>A very famous example: the relationship between the size of students' feet and reading comprehension was studied in a school. It was observed that those who had the largest feet usually had greater understanding ... An incorrect, fallacious argument would be to say: \"as reading comprehension is accompanied by a larger size of the foot, then it is because of the larger size of the foot\". Later it was seen that those who had larger foot size were the students who were older, a few months older than the others ... and that by that age they also had greater reading comprehension. Obviously, lengthening their feet was not going to make them have better understanding (if that was not accompanied by an increase in age, experience, mental maturity ...)</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>There are many fallacies ... and they are seen continuously in newspapers, in politicians, in hoaxes that run on the Internet ... It is good to know them to protect ourselves against deceptions, and, in addition, some are interesting or even funny, with many curious practical examples.</p>","appDepth":2,"appParentPermlink":"pk58uy7nx","appParentAuthor":"ajayiwaldorf","musingAppId":"aU2p3C3a8N","musingAppVersion":"1.1","musingPostType":"answer"}" |
|---|
hiveblocks