The idea of Proof and Falsification

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http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt220197.html

To those like Fnord who seek proof for all I have to ask is it possible to prove a presuppositions. The idea of a presupposition or the axiom is a set of tenets, observations, or beliefs that require no proof. Can you create an ultimate system in which it is possible to have a set of tenets that is always provable without going into an infinite regression of having to prove something?

Can you use your own tenets to prove your own tenets or do you always have to discover greater tenets? For example, can one use the scientific method to prove the scientific method and the tenets the scientific method is based upon?

Ruveyn, you make the claim "If your speculation cannot be empirically falsified it is worthless. It is not a scientific speculation. " My question to you is this. Can you falsify the idea of having to have a speculation be empirically falsifiable. Can you prove the falsifiability of what you claim and say Reveyn? Can you prove the null hypothesis to your statement of falsifiability? Why must an observation always be empirically falsified?

It is true that one could attack falsifiability itself.

This has been the subject of quite a few philosophical debates already. Example: If you make a prediction, and an observation is incompatible with the prediction, then is it the prediction or the observation which is wrong? After all, the human capacity for observation is fallible (a stick submerged in water, the Gorilla selective attention test, and so forth).

Unfortunately, this argument - when taken to its extreme- leads to a "Solipsism/Brain In A Vat/We All Live In the Matrix Problem" where no observation can be considered reliable. In which case, it would be pointless to argue at all. After all, me typing this message on a PC might just be a figment of your imagination.

So, in order to arrive at any useful concept of science, one needs to accept two axioms:

1. Objective Reality Exists
2. Objective Reality Can Be Perceived (although perfect perception is not necessary)

(1) and (2) combined leads to the concept of Positivism (IMO in a weaker sense than the Logical Positivism that Popper advocated against): The world is out there, and through research we can gain knowledge about it.

If (2) is not present, then (1) is irrelevant. If (1) is not present, then who cares?

The logic of falsification (laid down rigorously by the great Karl Popper, but described with remarkable precision 186 years earlier by the even greater David Hume) simply states that anything considered part of (1) must be subject to (2) in order to be of any empirical relevance (the context of justification).

Summary: One can launch logical critiques against the scientific concept of falsification. But these critiques will produce neither fruit nor light.

It an idea can't be falsified it may well be true, but it's totally useless, as we can't even do a thought experiment with it.