Russell's Tea Party

Drawn 10 years ago on New Year's Eve by Joe HF for the Out there in space challenge. Part of the album Space.

Somewhere out in the asteroid belt, there's a matching porcelain tea set. You can't prove me wrong, because no-one's managed to map out the smallest fragments of the asteroid belt yet. Therefore everyone should believe it exists.

Obviously, this claim and logic are absurd. Just because we haven't mapped (and may never map) the whole asteroid belt, is no reason to believe in a magical flying tea party. Unfortunately, many people use the exact same logic every day, to justify their beliefs in a range of mythical entities. "You can't prove me wrong, so it exists"

Drawing based on an idea of the great philosopher Bertrand Russell

Space Tea Teapot Cup Bertrand Russell Philosophy Religion Asteroid

Liked by Liar, MR, Zippy the Wonderslug, Zakeena, Krissie, Papachan, Kassy, Jini, Lunar Eclipse, Rebeccajj, Ana, xLitchi, sweetrox, Hababoon, magicalhobo, uneekL4evr, Nikko, and Kube.

10 years ago on New Year's Day

Sounds like a fallacy I learned in Philosophy class: Fallacy of Ignorance. There's no proof so it must be true. — uneekL4evr

10 years ago

I could prove the existence of that tea set somewhere out in the asteroid belt (Assuming a matching porcelain tea set is something that exists within the wider solar system, and if already having checked out any other reasonable place, I could prove the existence of that tea set somewhere out in the asteroid belt - or alternatively assuming an arbitrary value for "prove" or "exist") — Lunar Eclipse

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"We long to be here for a purpose, even though, despite much self-deception, none is evident."
Carl Sagan

Russell's Tea Party

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