did you just say it’s impossible to find a contradiction starting with <...>?
Isn’t this often trivially true though? Such claims are called unfalsifiable. To the contrary of your point, Bob is wrong because it is impossible to find a contradiction, not because it might in fact be possible.
Note that I explicitly removed the word “epiphenomenalism” from my quote, because I didn’t want to make claims about it. My point was that if you started with the assumption that X is unfalsifiable and derived that Y is true, then I don’t care about Y.
Where did your other comment go? I think it was a more accurate counter to my point.
Ah, ok. I changed it because I thought I misread you.
Anyway, yeah, if Bob has a valid argument against (2) - if he can prove that X is compatible with all evidence so far—that seems useful and non-vacuous to me. I’ve edited the post to make this clearer.
Isn’t this often trivially true though? Such claims are called unfalsifiable. To the contrary of your point, Bob is wrong because it is impossible to find a contradiction, not because it might in fact be possible.
I don’t think epiphenomenalism is unfalsifiable.
Note that I explicitly removed the word “epiphenomenalism” from my quote, because I didn’t want to make claims about it. My point was that if you started with the assumption that X is unfalsifiable and derived that Y is true, then I don’t care about Y.
Where did your other comment go? I think it was a more accurate counter to my point.
Ah, ok. I changed it because I thought I misread you.
Anyway, yeah, if Bob has a valid argument against (2) - if he can prove that X is compatible with all evidence so far—that seems useful and non-vacuous to me. I’ve edited the post to make this clearer.