No, because you don't know if there was some mistake or something which means that the finding you got at that point in space and time will never be repeated or something like that. Just like how you occasionally get these big physics experiments which get some statistically significant result that for some reason dsiappears and what they thought they found didn't really turn out to be anything. This applies just as well to falsifying as verifying.

As the other reply said, as an atheist, I find the "higher power" part of it to be an insult to my intelligence. But I can just ignore that and I think the rest of the program is good.

Thankfully just being falsified once at any point in space and time is enough to say a theory isn't generally correct for all space and time, so you can throw it out.

This asymmetry in how easy it is to prove a counterexample vs how easy it is to universally verify is why we stick with falsification as the main avenue for scientific progress.

I think these arguments apply just as well for falsification. You can't be sure that a theory that has been falsified will stay falsified in the future and won't be re-validated.

The Ptolemaic model could also be made to be correct, given more complexity.

Kuhn:

"Given a particular discrepancy, astronomers were invariably able to eliminate it by making some particular adjustment in Ptolemy’s system of compounded circles."

It's just that the juice isn't worth the squeeze as models grow more complex, so we switched

It seems you are drawing a great connection that's not there. Occam's Razor is only a guide. You almost make it sound like the heliocentric model is just one equally valid viewpoint as the Ptolemaic model but that people just liked it more because it was simpler. I think this fails to see the point entirely. We choose it not because it's simpler, but because it's correct. The relative simplicity is emergent.

>But given two competing unfalsified theories, what we call "true" is given by simplicity considerations.

Sounds like some weird philosophical definition of "true" rather than anything anyone in science would understand.

>I always feel it isn't quite right to say that Newtonian physics is wrong.

I like to use Newtonian physics as an example of how new physics doesn't mean the previous theory was "wrong". In the low speed limit the Einstein equations for special relativity just become the Newtonian equations.

So in the low speed limit in which Newtonian equations of motion were tested, they are "right".

Maybe it’s just the subs I subscribe to, but I can barely allude to the Twelve Step programs without starting a circlejerk about how appalling ineffective, culty, and offensive to folks’ atheist sensibilities all these programs are. I mean yeah, they’re not for everyone. Under no circumstances should anyone be mandated or court-ordered to attend one. But there are people who owe their successful recovery to them, for some people they are effective, and there’s not a lot to lose by giving them a try.

They're describing what the premise "Ability to resist temptation depends on parents socioeconomic background" could cause. You, me and them all know that seems unlikely, so the premise probably needs tweaking.

@AutoTLDRbot

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How is that "failed replication"? Sounds like "successful replication, also we found out what causes it".

When our minds are cluttered or overwhelmed with too many competing thoughts or tasks, we may be more likely to give in to temptation as a way to relieve this mental burden

There is contradiction between the super egoic demand to moderate, and the super egoic demand to enjoy perfectly at all times.

A thought exercise - I've had a thought that upbringing stops at 12, when the child enters puberty. At this point they begin rebelling and take in new experiences. While rebelling they are in fact not 'rebelling', but testing if the knowledge they've gained from their parents hold up in the real world. If it does, they keep it, if it doesn't, it's discarded. They keep up until they're an adult, where they've formed their own opinions.

I believe this is why we 'grow up to become like our parents', but not until we are actual adults, and not exactly alike.

This is all fascinating, but in this world anything goes. Right and wrong are man made concepts. The law is a man made concept. If we didn’t have these restrictions, there would be no such thing as temptation, only desire, good or bad, right or wrong. Are they the same thing, maybe.

>Although it would. Whether for yourself or someone else or society as a whole, the utility coach would increase utility.

With this stipulated, the decision is a no-brainer; it should be forced on everyone.

>And it wouldn't be forced on anyone because peoples free choices are to be respected.

Based on what justification? Typically we respect people’s free choices because they know their preferences better than we do, but that doesn’t apply in this hypothetical. Even if you say that freedom is a good in itself has its own utility, we have already considered that utility when taking away their free will (in that the loss of that utility is overcome by the gain in utility by having the utility coach). You basically have to treat freedom as having infinite value, but as you start out saying: “No value is ever so sacred that it can never be exchanged for another value.” What is special about freedom that makes it override all other welfare considerations?

When a moral system places freedom on a pedestal above all other values, you get moral issues relating to criminals. Should we respect a criminals free choice to harm and not restrict their freedom? Either freedom is sacrosanct and can’t be traded with other values and we should let criminals run free or freedom is something that can be exchanged with other welfare considerations and allows us to trade it for the higher utility that the utility coach gives them.

That's what make sense why priests who end up bein harassers and screwing around boys, since they obstinate from sex and try to avoid it so many times .

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Typical (read: average) JOE 🙄

Yeah, and what you’re saying makes me think of the phrase “all models are wrong, but some are useful”. As long as you understand the limitations of your methods, it’s less about being exactly right to 100,000,000 decimal places, and more about “will this building stand up?”

I can resist anything but temptation.

I think I struggle with this due to having a rough upbringing. At the same time, I attribute a lot of myself to the few external positives, as well as the collection of other close ones who were astray.

Both the good and bad have been solid reflection points for myself throughout my life. I was fortunate enough to soak up a lot at a young age, and being curious has helped me form better feelings besides the second-hand initial knowledge. Going astray throughout life up through now has helped confirm some things, but also helped me create new definitions to others.

Linking back to the video, and I believe what you're also saying - if I were to never give in to the temptations I knew were likely bad, I would have never formed a new opinion, or I may never know with certainty to myself that they are bad.

I agree we need to search within us to find what is right for ourselves. I think self-reflection is extremely important to one's growth.