Wrong But Irrefutable

Are there some ideas that can be categorized as WrongButIrrefutable?. I don't mean that they're actually irrefutable, because then how would one claim that they were wrong? I mean that whoever holds these ideas loses the ability to refute them even though they're wrong - precisely because he holds them.

From: PayNoAttentionToTheManBehindTheCurtain

The problem with pages like this is that they take a potentially interesting question and turn it into a contentious question. This page should not be about 'wrong' things, since that does not follow from irrefutable (except in a rather special case). What *is* potentially interesting is the idea of what parts of a belief system are outside the scope of logic, for example...

Sure. Just about all religions. Once you accept the premises that the bible (or its equivalent) is the word of God, and that God's wisdom should be trusted more than your own reason, you are trapped.

You're not really going to start this, are you? Please. Give it a rest.

Although the line about religion is maybe exaggerated, there are similar concerns raised by the medical profession regarding "Quack Doctors" (see http://www.quackwatch.org/).

The more you invest in an idea (or theory, or dogma), the less likely you are to admit that it might be wrong. -- FrancoisGenolini

Is that CognitiveDissonance at work?

Most things that fall into this category are hard to refute because:

There are too many variables to rationally compare
Assumptions based on human nature or human psychology, which is hard to test and varies greatly per person.

Natural selection falls into the first category, while politics, economics, and software engineering fall under both.

Natural selection very definitely falls into both categories, since the major opposition to it comes from religious groups.

But the evidence debated does not fall into that category. You seem to be talking about hidden agendas or psychological bias.

Maybe they are not wrong, but YOU are. Ever consider that? If it is hard to refute, then perhaps there are more things to consider that you are missing.

The closest I have seen to this was the peculiar notion that history told us nothing about political reality today. I could think of hundreds of cases where it did but, sad to say, they were all in the past and so were dismissed as irrelevant. I have no idea what the motivation was.

I'm surprised nobody has brought in Goedel's Theorem (aka GoedelsTheorem). If it's true that a system is necessarily incomplete and/or will be contradictory, then (it seems to me) there will be statements which are "wrong" but irrefutable. Now, I think the only sense in which they would be "wrong" is existentially ... or phenomenologically *sigh* ... experientially *there!* But ... if the system is incomplete, then it won't handle the exception. And if it's contradictory, then it won't be able to refute the exception. So, as the plane crashes in flames, my rational mind will follow the program and say, "Great! Worked like a charm!" or, maybe, "Gee, I wonder what's for lunch." Okay, someone else take it away! [does this all entail that something could be RightButIneffable??] -- BenTremblay

That depends whether you think mathematical statements have truth beyond that assigned to them by the system or by some interpretation thereof.

Perhaps we should look at the perspectives. "Wrong" involves someone's personal perspective, but "Irrefutable" involves other people's perspectives. I can believe something is wrong, but I may not be able to convince you that it is wrong, hence it is wrong but irrefutable. See: CircularReasoning, FallaciousArgument

Actually there are three cases swept up by the title of this page.

(a) something is objectively wrong but apparently irrefutable, or
(b) something is apparently wrong but objectively irrefutable, or
(c) something is apparently wrong but, from another angle, apparently irrefutable.

A fourth case, something being objectively wrong but objectively irrefutable, ought to be impossible; law of non-contradiction, you know...

The top of this page seems to be referring to category (a), where somebody holds an idea which is wrong but the very idea probably has something to do with how to prove whether or not an idea is true, and of course it suggests that it is itself true. That's like saying:

1. In order to be true, an idea has to have a two-step proof whose first step is a statement of the idea itself and whose second step is "Q.E.D."
2. Q.E.D.

The above is irrefutable - unless you are willing to step outside the system. But if you only step into another formal system then you run the risk of doing the same thing again. Maybe that's why GoedelsTheorem is inevitable.

The above logic is falling into the "binary" trap. The term "objectively" is being used to mean "absolutely" and thus sets up an impossible case. It is almost impossible to find something that is absolutely wrong or is absolutely irrefutable. Almost everything has a degree of being wrong and a degree of being irrefutable. Some statements may have a high degree of both, thus "Wrong but irrefutable" is true and expresses the more precise concept of "Highly wrong but highly irrefutable."

Actually it's rather easy to find things that are absolutely irrefutable. The existence of the universe and of oneself come to mind.

This sentence is WrongButIrrefutable.

To me, that sentence sounds a lot like it is demonstrably false (and the demonstrably avoids the EpimenidesParadox?).

Anyone who uses this tag has just admitted to stupidity or idiocy. There is no wrong statement that cannot be proved wrong. By calling something "irrefutable", a person merely admits that the refutation is beyond their intellectual capacities. They lack either the intelligence, insight or knowledge to refute it. Further, they lack the desire to gain the required expertise. And finally, that they lack the wisdom to recognize that someone else can refute it, that the refutation probably already exists somewhere.

For example, define God as "that being which created the universe". Then God exists by definition. How do you refute it? Very trivially from within the proper metaphysical framework. You start by observing that existence is not a predicate but a meta-predicate. So you cannot encode the existence of a thing into a definition of it. Then you define physical reality as the mathematical theory with the smallest Kolmogorov complexity that explains all mental artifacts. You justify this definition of reality on the basis that 1) it is consistent with ordinary usage of the word (which you proceed to prove), 2) it is pragmatic (smallest Kolmogorov complexity), 3) is is self-satisfying, and 4) that abstraction is a form of explanation, and is the natural function of any neural network (such as a human brain). With that basis, you observe that the definition of God given above does not constitute a complete explanation of all mental artifacts without a complete definition of "the universe" (such as an enumeration or a physical theory of everything). Then you observe that God is superfluous, that you can always construct a smaller, less complex, theory by merely omitting God. And voila, this "proof" of God is refuted. And in the process, you learned a lot of highly advanced and very sophisticated metaphysics.

But I guess this isn't the original sense of WrongButIrrefutable. To answer the question "is it possible for someone to hold an idea whose possession makes that person immune to the idea's refutation?" No, it is not. But if you were more sophisticated you might ask "is it possible for someone to hold a delusion or other psychological defect whose possession makes the person impervious to reason?" whose answer is "Hell yes!"

There is no wrong statement that cannot be proved wrong.

The big bang was caused by a wombat fart.

Disprove that statement.

Trivial. That statement isn't merely superfluous, like "God is such that he created the universe", but flat out wrong. Wombat farts aren't such that they can cause a Big Bang.

Funny... I didn't realize that "Is not!" consituted a proof :)

Is too!

{The quantum world is full of really odd possibilities. It cannot be ruled out. Under some theories, a single atom can trigger a new universe.}

It doesn't matter since wombat farts aren't such that they cause odd quantum fluctuations. Yes, you can accelerate a car to thousands of kph by blowing up a big bomb underneath one, it's still not in the nature of cars to go that fast. The mistake is in thinking that anything contained in a wombat fart (atoms, quantum fluctuations) is necessarily part of its nature. Consider viruses, bacteria, jumping genes and other parasites for a brutal disproof of that notion.

Saying "x isn't such that it causes y" doesn't disprove anything. There are an infinite number of incorrect statements that can't be proven incorrect.