hmmm, depends on how tightly you hold to your own viewpoints then I guess ^^;

There are some viewpoints I hold (most of them mathematics or physics based) that are logically derived from first principles, and hence undisprovable.
The rest are fair game. For example, evolution? Fossil bunnies in the Precambrian (A famous response.)
Atheism? Direct, independently verified, repeatable and measurable divine intervention. (So it's not a hallucination, mysteriously visible only to believers or hearsay. And anything that has an effect on the world is by definition measurable.)

What are these "first principles"? Being a physicist/philosopher myself, mathematics and physics and logic as a whole can all be easily dismissed if you don't accept their primary postulates. Unless by "undisprovable" you mean they don't hold themselves as "true" or "false" but merely as methods of dealing with things, then I think I understand. Then again, you could boil all viewpoints down to that level, making the purpose of the journal moot XD

It's things like the theorems of Euclidian geometry. In maths, the term "theorem" refers to something that has been proven beyond a shadow of doubt. All it rests on is the postulates, and in Euclid there are only five.
It is not possible to have a triangle in Euclidian space with more than 180 degrees total internal angles - that's an undisprovable viewpoint. I am fully aware that there are non Euclidian geometries, and each has its' own postulates and theorems.
Similarly, there is no such thing as the highest prime number, by definition; 1+1 = 2 with only pure logic...
These things rest on postulates that are often so simple that they seem fundamental aspects of the universe - a thing is either P or P', there's no middle ground (quantum wierdness doesn't count, that's an issue of something's location, not it being a proton and an electron at the same time...)
To say otherwise (at least in considering this universe) is such aggressive relativism that it goes beyond the scope of rational thought - rationalism is based on deductions from the observed universe.

Deductive reasoning as a whole has its issues. How can you say deduction is the true? The closest method is by saying "because it has worked", which is a form of deduction within itself. Deduction also relies upon assuming that the universe will follow the same rules from one moment to the next, and since nobody who has had a say in this matter knows everything along the entire existence of the universe, it's simply an assumption that has no concrete base besides the fact that we can't think of another method for rationalizing such things otherwise.

Also, "theorems" aren't things that have been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. They have merely been proven based on previously established axioms (the Euclidian postulates you're referring to), which you kinda stated anyways, but it's not quite "beyond a shadow of a doubt". And according to Goedel's Incompleteness Theorems, no set of axioms can be established that can prove everything (which kinda says itself can't be proven, but that's by using the same system its own axioms are based upon, and thus all logic we know of would work similarly). Then again, I don't know Goedel's theorems myself - my professors spared us of the several days and several rounds of 4-wall blackboard writing it would require to show us them. But, apparently wikipedia has an article on it, though I'm going to bed and can't check it out myself just yet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B.....eness_theorems

And yes, such thinking would go beyond "rational thought", but what is a viewpoint, if not a thought that somebody believed was rational?

The principle of rational thought is that the universe makes sense and follows consistent rules. That people have believed things to be rational is true, but it's part of the effect of multiple meanings for the same word.
There's essentially no way for making sense of anything than assuming consistency - and frankly, since the options are "rational thought and deduction" and "total zany chaos that has persisted this way up to now by chance"... it's probably more sensible to assume the first.

Sure, you can't prove everything - but we can use what we get. After all, the incompleteness theorems don't state that the deductions we have are false, just that they're incomplete.


I may have already touched on this, but the reason for the use of deduction is essentially that:
1)A system can only be considered to work if it corresponds with what is already known. Otherwise what is the system's results but a load of irrelevant garbage? Arguments have "proven" the existence of several mutually incompatible deities
2)Deduction (in the scientific sense) is the intent to make a system that inherently corresponds with what is already known, with the addition of predicting future results to check against to prevent circular reasoning.
3) The scientific method also includes Deductive Reasoning, but the main thrust of it is Inductive Reasoning. "Based on this, this and this, what will that do?"


Basically, yeah Theorems aren't totally proven, but Theorems are very close to and Theories (proper ones) are pretty good too. Essentially, disproving them (by the "breakdown - deductive - reasoning" route) would also invalidate most human definitions of proof - and the only one it wouldn't is the photography based one

My gosh people should think about this way more often. I've always been one to "Devil's Advocate" the hell out of anything I naturally believe...Of course this leads me to be kind of insecure and kind of wishy washy but, I'd prefer that than being an ignorant pride-filled dolt who spews the same thing over and over without consideration.

I think it shouldn't be "how would we disprove our viewpoint" but more "we must define when we acknowledge our viewpoint is no longer a valid one."

I love the Edge...I need to read some more of the stuff they've published.

depends on which one of my views, im always open for changes and challanges to anything I hold

i tend to look at both sides so i usually try to ignore these, but i see what your talking about

This has steadily taken over as my dominant life philosophy over the past couple years. I've been trying to convince others of its merits as well.

There are very few, real critical thinkers in this world.

This is the key to Introspection =P

I think that the logic of this argument is seriously flawed. Inability to disprove something is almost antipodal to the inability to prove it; if we're capable of disproving what we believe, then it is irrational to continue believing it. It is true that inability to disprove a hypothesis can stem from ignorance, but it can also stem from, you know... a correct hypothesis.

I think that this is the wrong question. The correct question is: Is your belief logically constructed upon a sufficient foundation of unbiased factual knowledge?