Re:New restrictions in Hong Kong show that a single lockdown...
by bob33212 on Saturday March 28, 2020 @01:11PM
(#22712498)
Sorry, I don't believe in a magical skyman as a first principal.
Re:New restrictions in Hong Kong show that a single lockdown...
by bawolff on Saturday March 28, 2020 @03:00PM
(#22713466)
Well you can of course take anything you want as a first principle, this is kind of an odd choice. Typically people take as first principles foundational things they believe to be true but know they can't prove. Things like, our memory reflects things that happened in the past or other people exist as real people and aren't just complex NPC.
Most atheists believe that there is no reasonable evidence for a deity, thus it makes no sense to believe in one (or some varation of that). In particular they believe this conclusion is rational and can be arrived at through reasoning. Taking "there is no deities" as a first principle, is in essense taking a view about religion on just "faith". My understanding is that to most atheists, this sort of appeal to faith is an anathema.
From first principles there is no reason why anyone should think that their won't be 2 billion vaccines tomorrow (perhaps via divine intervention). Heck, from first principles I'm not even sure Australia exists (Maybe Australia is a giant hoax. After all, i have never been there.)
Proving things from first principles is really hard. The fact you weren't able to disprove a statement from first principles is not strong evidence the statement is actually true.