Vlad,
No no no
Yes yes yes.
It isn't about what is the centre of anything Hillside.
It's about turning a methodology into a philosophy.
It’s no such thing – at least it’s not if you want to make that philosophy absolutist in nature. The only “philosophy” that’s necessary here is the reasoning that models of reality can be parochial and still provide working truths, with no necessity for also claiming those truths to be absolute or universal. That kind of overreaching I leave to theists.
Take empiricism for example.
The real meaning or your personal re-definition of it?
It is a philosophy which merely defines the meaningful and the non meaningful according to its philosophical position.
It’s no such thing. As you’re so fond of Wiki, here’s what it says it means:
“
Empiricism is a theory that states that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience.[1] One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism and skepticism, empiricism emphasizes the role of empirical evidence in the formation of ideas, over the notion of innate ideas or traditions;[2] empiricists may argue however that traditions (or customs) arise due to relations of previous sense experiences.[3]
Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence, especially as discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation.
Empiricism, often used by natural scientists, says that "knowledge is based on experience" and that "knowledge is tentative and probabilistic, subject to continued revision and falsification."[4] One of the epistemological tenets is that sensory experience creates knowledge. Empirical research, including experiments and validated measurement tools, guides the scientific method.”
Now focus on these bits:
“…
empiricism emphasizes the role of empirical evidence in the formation of ideas…”
“Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence…”
"…knowledge is based on experience" and that "knowledge is tentative and probabilistic, subject to continued revision and falsification…"[
“…sensory experience creates knowledge….”
Do you see the key words there: “
emphasizes”; “based on”; "tentative and probabilistic”; “creates knowledge”?
Your need to jemmy a different meaning onto it such that it supposedly reaches for absolute truths may be pathological, but it's still entirely false.
Nothing about centres or layers there.
It was an analogy which – as so often – seems to have been entirely lost on you.
To suggest that atheists do not have a philosophy for how the universe is is making atheism in your own image.
Stop lying. A-theism just means “without gods”. “How the universe is” for atheists collectively is just the conclusion that there’s been nothing to observe in it so far at least that leads to the conclusion “god(s)”. Beyond that, there are as many opinions on “the universe” as there are atheists to have them.
I would challenge you though to state how you know there isn't a centre or that we can never know a centre. That strikes me as dogmatic agnosticism.
Only because you don’t understand those terms.
First, I didn’t say that there isn’t a centre.
Second, there’s no logical path to eliminate the risk of unknown unknowns so we couldn't know that it is the centre, even if we found it. Whether there ever could be such logic is a different matter, but just now that’s the problem for people and gods alike: how would even an omniscient god know that he
was omniscient?
You merely plucked a statement on methodological materialism in Wikipedia and put it in your own context.
No I didn’t. I actually quoted
verbatim from the entry on naturalism because you refrenced it, and I showed that it actually says pretty much the opposite of what you claimed it to say. As indeed does the entry on materialism (see above).
Since you are a methodological materialist and I am why do you keep crashing into what I post?
Because what you post consistently lies about what I and others say and think. Stop lying and I won't need to correct you.
The answer is of course that we disagree philosophically.
No we don’t, because you have no “philosophy” to support you. Mendacity, straw men, logical fallacies etc do not constitute a philosophy, however much you may wish it otherwise.
That doesn't mean you are what you wish us to believe here....ie.......philosophy free
Your efforts
are “philosophy free”. As you fail to understand or misrepresent the very terms on which you rely, how could it be otherwise?
That you think you might be is just arrogant delusion.
You're trying to be ironic right?.
How you get from methodological materialism to where you are remains the hard problem of materialism..........and you have an extra one. How you get from science to scientism.
Of course it doesn’t for the reasons I’ve explained to you several times now. Methodological materialism is complete enough
of itself to provide working, pragmatic models of reality. I don’t need to “get from” there to anywhere for that to be so. You on the other hand on the outer layer of the onion with “God” epistemically alongside Ra, Zeus and the leprechauns really do have to get from there to firmer ground if you want your claims and assertions to be taken seriously.
Good luck with it though.