Superheating at STP? Please explain to a simple layman.
Yes, at STP. In the post in which I mention it, the word "superheating" is also a hyperlink to an appropriate article on the subject. In essence, the method entails gentle and uniform heating of pure water that is not disturbed during the heating process. It can happen in microwave ovens and has done so, resulting in injuries.
Answer what questions? Be specific, and clear.
Why, the one I posed in
Reply #8, at 14:18:06 today. Is the wording giving you trouble?
But, on the other hand, we do not live on the subatomic level.
Which observation, if you examine its implications, reveals why the sceptical position demands that we are cautious in putting forward any "absolute truths."
Our knowledge about the world is in terms of our senses and the perceptual universe.
Indeed, and that goes to the very heart of the problem, namely this dilemma: we have no sense- and/or perception-independent means of validating our sense- and perception-derived understanding of the world. In fact, we
know that sense and perception can mislead us. Hence, there is always room for doubt, tiny though it may be.
There are many esoteric theories floating around in science today that could be interesting to discuss, but they do not negate A=A.
Yes, because you're conflating a
necessary (or definitional) truth with knowledge: the statement "A=A" is a tautology and, as such, is meaningless. Such definitional truth cannot satisfactorily justify a belief because it just a fancy way of saying, "It’s true because I define it to be true."
The insistence that a new truth will emerge in a new context (visa a vis boiling water)ignores that a context has been specified.
Not necessarily because to be useful, any contextual specification must have room for some variability otherwise we could only ever speak of specific instances, and never of general rules, let alone laws of nature. There may exist within your specified context an obscure and extremely rare exception or configuration in which your expectation is not met, and you can never rule such a possibility out entirely. Consequently, you cannot rightfully claim to have absolute knowledge. As an aside, the study of phase spaces in the context of quantum mechanics suggests that "what is not expressly forbidden by the laws of nature,
must occur at some point, given sufficient time." If valid, this would mean that an apparent impossibility, like a smashed bottle spontaneously reassembling itself and jumping back up onto the table off which it fell, can actually happen.
Once the essential facts are identified the truth does not vary.
Really? You may wish to examine that statement against the background of, say, Newtonian mechanics versus Relativity.
How many times must I allude to the terms employed by skeptics before my point is grasped? Bush is "probably" the president? … Such assertions are arbitrary and gratuitous, the standard fare of skeptics.
Your straw man is showing: as pointed out earlier, for reasons of consistency the sceptical position demands an acknowledgement that there is always and everywhere room for residual doubt re alleged facts about the world, and even this tenet itself is not immune. However, it seems to me that you feel the sceptic's necessary admission in this regard automatically translates to "everything must be doubted." Wrong. The fact that there is always room for doubt does not exclude us having overwhelming certainty about some things that it would be downright foolish to challenge, just as there are extremely dark shades of grey that are practically indistinguishable from black, yet for all that
aren't black.
Philosophy is still the most fundamental discipline, as I have already pointed out.
Debatable: if that was so, philosophy would be the final court of appeal for any undecided questions. However, that rarely, if ever, happens in practice.
Please specify your epistemological assumptions.
In simple terms, that the world is to some degree knowable through our senses and reason, while at all times having the humility to acknowledge that I may be wrong. The question to what degree the world is thus knowable is one that takes into account the coherence and weight of different evidentiary lines.
'Luthon64