8 ms·

> Propositions are in the same category as sentences, as far as their dependency on representation is concerned. What evidence do you have of this being the ca

> Propositions are in the same category as sentences, as far as their dependency on representation is concerned. What evidence do you have of this being the case? Think about what it would mean for the truth of "Snow is white" if it was dependent upon how it was represented. If you can represent something in more than one way, then that thing is not dependent upon its representation. > Take a random proposition that you think would have evaluated to true in the past, before humans existed, if an entity capable of evaluating the proposition had been around. Now, subtract from the concept that you have in your mind everything that is simply the (physical) world as it is (i.e., the "testable"/empirical aspects referenced by the proposition). What do you have left that could be considered to exist in any meaningful sense, absent a (physical) representation expressing the abstraction? You would have nothing, but you removed the physical world and have removed the propositions that go along with that world. The proposition "Snow is white" depends on the existence of snow being white, and it does not depend on the sentence "Snow is white". That being said, the proposition "1 < 2" does not depend on anything physical. So you can removed all physical things, and "1 < 2" will still be true under the Peano axioms. >> What evidence do you have that establishes this as true? > "It has not been demonstrated that you can use the testable patterns to demonstrate the existence of untestable abstract ideas." Not to be a burden, but to respond to your question could you give me a refresh: What are you considering to be a testable pattern? What are you considering to be an untestable abstract idea? >> To have objective reality or being. > And how would you define "objective reality" and "being"? Objective reality: not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts regarding the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them. > Those seem to me more like synonyms than definitions!? Uhh... the composition of words in a definition is synonymous with what they are defining. If you only use one word to define something, then that word is a synonym... I don't understand the point of this complaint. If you think the definition is wrong or obscure then please state why. Perhaps you don't like the definition because you are trying to find something that implies physicality? I got the definition straight from google... Is there some other dictionary you'd like to suggest? >> I did not define "potential" as "possible", I defined it as "possible state". > So ... where you wrote "potential state", you meant "possible state state"?! ... Or in other words: a state can not be current and possible at the same time. What did I miss? Oof, cleaning up it is... let's start from scratch (the "same time" stuff has been removed as I am acknowledging that it made no sense): (Potential = possibility; actually = currently) =========================================================================================================================================================== A) If it is not the case that the potential for the universe being in a different state actually exists, then it is not the case that the universe can change states. B) The universe can change states. C) If the potential for the universe being in a different state is physical, then the potential for the universe being in a different state would be observable. D) If the potential for the universe being in a different state is observable, then the potential for the universe being in a different state would have qualities which can be scientifically observed. E) It is not the case that the potential for the universe being in a different state has qualities which can be scientifically observed. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- F) The potential for the universe being in a different state actually exists. (modus tollens A,B) G) It is not the case that the potential for the universe being in a different state is observable. (modus tollens D,E) H) It is not the case that the potential for the universe being in a different state is physical. (modus tollens C,G) I) The potential for the universe being in a different state actually exists, and it is not the case that the potential for the universe being in a different state is physical. (conjunction introduction F,H) =========================================================================================================================================================== >> Morality: Principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior. > Well, as above: How would you define "right", "wrong", "good", and "bad" (in this context)? Right/Good behavior is an act which is in accordance with what God wills. Wrong/Bad behavior is and act which is not in accordance with what God wills.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
> What evidence do you have of this being the case? Well, the thought experiment that followed? > Think about what it would mean for the truth of "Snow is white" if it was dependent upon how it was represented. If you can represent something in more than one way, then that thing is not dependent upon its representation. Nah, that's not what I mean. My point is not that the content of the concept depends on how it is represented, but that the existence of the concept depends on the concept being represented. It doesn't matter how it is represented, the point is that if it is not represented at all, there is no basis for the claim that it exists. > You would have nothing, but you removed the physical world and have removed the propositions that go along with that world. The proposition "Snow is white" depends on the existence of snow being white, and it does not depend on the sentence "Snow is white". Nah, that's also not what I mean. The idea isn't to change the world to not have any physical reality. The idea is to remove from your conception of "snow is white" all the aspects that mirror physical reality (though I think that's a bad example for this because it's kinda difficult to see how to do that). > That being said, the proposition "1 < 2" does not depend on anything physical. So you can removed all physical things, and "1 < 2" will still be true under the Peano axioms. You mean you could evaluate "1 < 2" to "true" using the Peano axioms ... without representing the Peano axioms anywhere? Doing an immaterial computation? I am not sure I have any concept of what you are trying to construct here. > Not to be a burden, but to respond to your question could you give me a refresh: What are you considering to be a testable pattern? What are you considering to be an untestable abstract idea? By a testable pattern I mean essentially "a description of physical reality", by an abstract idea I mean "a description of a made-up system of rules". As in, "9 apples + 1 apple = 10 apples" is a description of a pattern in physical reality, which is also testable, in that you can take 9 apples, and add another apple, and then check whether you failed to get 10 apples (which would falsify the claim). "9 + 1 = 10" on the other hand is a description of a made-up system of rules, which you can only evaluate for consistency against the system of rules (so, you could check whether "9 + 1 = 10" can be proved based on the (implied by convention unless specified otherwise) Peano axioms, or any other axioms). > Objective reality: not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts regarding the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them. It's kinda unfortunate that you used "exist" in defining "objective reality", which was supposed to define "exist" ... ?! > Uhh... the composition of words in a definition is synonymous with what they are defining. If you only use one word to define something, then that word is a synonym... I don't understand the point of this complaint. If you think the definition is wrong or obscure then please state why. Sure, there is nothing wrong with your definition per se (and I don't really care much whether it's obscure or "wrong", I am just trying to understand what you are trying to say), it just doesn't seem to be any less ambiguous than what I was asking about. So, yeah, synonyms are perfectly fine definitions in principle, but I was asking for a definition because "exist" is a pretty ambiguous word, and a synonym doesn't really help with that--rather, I am trying to understand which specific meaning you have in mind when you are using it here. (And, after all, I can look up generally used synonyms myself ;-) > Perhaps you don't like the definition because you are trying to find something that implies physicality? I got the definition straight from google... Is there some other dictionary you'd like to suggest? No, it's just about understanding what you mean when you say "exists" (in this context), and to make sure we aren't running into any equivocation where it's used with two different meanings in different places in the argument. > B) The universe can change states. I see quite a few potential flaws in that whole argument, but I think I'll start with this one: How do you know that, if not as a result of the scientific observation of the physical process of the universe changing states? Or am I misunderstanding your claim here? > Right/Good behavior is an act which is in accordance with what God wills. > Wrong/Bad behavior is and act which is not in accordance with what God wills. OK ... so, under that definition(!!!): Why should I, or anyone, care about morality?

8 ms·

> Propositions are in the same category as sentences, as far as their dependency on representation is concerned. What evidence do you have of this being the ca

by sonusario 8y ago

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
> What evidence do you have of this being the case? Well, the thought experiment that followed? > Think about what it would mean for the truth of "Snow is white" if it was dependent upon how it was represented. If you can represent something in more than one way, then that thing is not dependent upon its representation. Nah, that's not what I mean. My point is not that the content of the concept depends on how it is represented, but that the existence of the concept depends on the concept being represented. It doesn't matter how it is represented, the point is that if it is not represented at all, there is no basis for the claim that it exists. > You would have nothing, but you removed the physical world and have removed the propositions that go along with that world. The proposition "Snow is white" depends on the existence of snow being white, and it does not depend on the sentence "Snow is white". Nah, that's also not what I mean. The idea isn't to change the world to not have any physical reality. The idea is to remove from your conception of "snow is white" all the aspects that mirror physical reality (though I think that's a bad example for this because it's kinda difficult to see how to do that). > That being said, the proposition "1 < 2" does not depend on anything physical. So you can removed all physical things, and "1 < 2" will still be true under the Peano axioms. You mean you could evaluate "1 < 2" to "true" using the Peano axioms ... without representing the Peano axioms anywhere? Doing an immaterial computation? I am not sure I have any concept of what you are trying to construct here. > Not to be a burden, but to respond to your question could you give me a refresh: What are you considering to be a testable pattern? What are you considering to be an untestable abstract idea? By a testable pattern I mean essentially "a description of physical reality", by an abstract idea I mean "a description of a made-up system of rules". As in, "9 apples + 1 apple = 10 apples" is a description of a pattern in physical reality, which is also testable, in that you can take 9 apples, and add another apple, and then check whether you failed to get 10 apples (which would falsify the claim). "9 + 1 = 10" on the other hand is a description of a made-up system of rules, which you can only evaluate for consistency against the system of rules (so, you could check whether "9 + 1 = 10" can be proved based on the (implied by convention unless specified otherwise) Peano axioms, or any other axioms). > Objective reality: not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts regarding the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them. It's kinda unfortunate that you used "exist" in defining "objective reality", which was supposed to define "exist" ... ?! > Uhh... the composition of words in a definition is synonymous with what they are defining. If you only use one word to define something, then that word is a synonym... I don't understand the point of this complaint. If you think the definition is wrong or obscure then please state why. Sure, there is nothing wrong with your definition per se (and I don't really care much whether it's obscure or "wrong", I am just trying to understand what you are trying to say), it just doesn't seem to be any less ambiguous than what I was asking about. So, yeah, synonyms are perfectly fine definitions in principle, but I was asking for a definition because "exist" is a pretty ambiguous word, and a synonym doesn't really help with that--rather, I am trying to understand which specific meaning you have in mind when you are using it here. (And, after all, I can look up generally used synonyms myself ;-) > Perhaps you don't like the definition because you are trying to find something that implies physicality? I got the definition straight from google... Is there some other dictionary you'd like to suggest? No, it's just about understanding what you mean when you say "exists" (in this context), and to make sure we aren't running into any equivocation where it's used with two different meanings in different places in the argument. > B) The universe can change states. I see quite a few potential flaws in that whole argument, but I think I'll start with this one: How do you know that, if not as a result of the scientific observation of the physical process of the universe changing states? Or am I misunderstanding your claim here? > Right/Good behavior is an act which is in accordance with what God wills. > Wrong/Bad behavior is and act which is not in accordance with what God wills. OK ... so, under that definition(!!!): Why should I, or anyone, care about morality?

sonusario 8y ago
>>> Propositions are in the same category as sentences, as far as their dependency on representation is concerned. >> What evidence do you have of this being the case? > Well, the thought experiment that followed? The thought experiment was scientific evidence? > My point is not that the content of the concept depends on how it is represented, but that the existence of the concept depends on the concept being represented. Ah, well I am referring to the proposition as the content of the concept, and the content of the concept as not being dependent on its representation conceptually or syntactically. How something is conceptualized in the mind is not of current concern for my position. > You mean you could evaluate "1 < 2" to "true" using the Peano axioms ... without representing the Peano axioms anywhere? Doing an immaterial computation? I am not sure I have any concept of what you are trying to construct here. No, 'you' and 'evaluate/compute' is not in the picture. I can do an evaluation, and that would require representation, but my evaluation is to find that it is true, not to make it true. I agree that immaterial computation is not possible, but computation is not what is being discussed. Do you think that the statement "'1 < 2' is true under the Peano axioms" is dependent on something material? > It's kinda unfortunate that you used "exist" in defining "objective reality", which was supposed to define "exist" ... ?! Well its not my definition. Is there a definition that satisfies you that I could consider co-opting? > ... "exist" is a pretty ambiguous word ... Hmmm, interesting. I hadn't thought that it might be ambiguous. Why do you think it's ambiguous? > ... to make sure we aren't running into any equivocation where ["exists" is] used with two different meanings in different places in the argument. Well, if it is any consolation, you may note that I use "exists" in only one phrase that is used three times: "The potential for the universe being in a different state actually exists". >> B) The universe can change states. > I see quite a few potential flaws in that whole argument, but I think I'll start with this one: > How do you know that, if not as a result of the scientific observation of the physical process of the universe changing states? Or am I misunderstanding your claim here? That "the universe can change states" is known by observation. >> Right/Good behavior is an act which is in accordance with what God wills. >> Wrong/Bad behavior is and act which is not in accordance with what God wills. > OK ... so, under that definition(!!!): Why should I, or anyone, care about morality? Define "should".
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
  > The thought experiment was scientific evidence? Well, I guess you could even look at it that way (it is a question about thought that we are trying to answer, after all), but I'd tend to think that that is a category error, strictly speaking, in that we are dealing with a formal (language) system, so it's more on the proof side of things. Unless you consider it a question of finding agreement about definitions, in which case that thought experiment is simply an exercise in (empirically) determining the definition that you are using. > Ah, well I am referring to the proposition as the content of the concept, and the content of the concept as not being dependent on its representation conceptually or syntactically. How something is conceptualized in the mind is not of current concern for my position. Yes, I agree that how it is conceptualized is not (very) relevant (it kindof is, because complexity theory, essentially, but maybe we don't need to get into that?). But it is relevant that it is represented, or at least I don't see any reason to think that representation is optional. That is to say: I have no idea what you are talking about when you are talking about immaterial Peano axioms. Every instance of Peano axioms that I can think of has a physical representation, just as every instance of cake that I can think of has physical representation. Making the assumption that there is such a thing as immaterial Peano axioms seems to me as reasonable as making the assumption that there is such a thing as immaterial cake. It is grammatically perfectly fine English to say "immaterial cake", but that's it, there is no content to those words. > Well its not my definition. Is there a definition that satisfies you that I could consider co-opting? Well, that's difficult, as ... > Hmmm, interesting. I hadn't thought that it might be ambiguous. Why do you think it's ambiguous? ... there are so many ways in which people vary what exactly they mean by "exist". As a random example, some people think that things that exist for a span of time that has no extent (like, 0 seconds) can be said to exist. In my book, that is a pretty useless definition, because it makes for a concept that cannot distinguish anything, but if that is your definition, an otherwise wrong argument might actually be correct--even though it doesn't tell you anything about useful notions of existence. And the argument that you are making seems to be of the kind where those details can make the difference between true and false. > Well, if it is any consolation, you may note that I use "exists" in only one phrase that is used three times: "The potential for the universe being in a different state actually exists". Which seems to be a central claim in all of this? But, I dunno, maybe we can try approaching it from the other end, and maybe that'll give me an idea what aspects of "existence" to ask for clarification on: > That "the universe can change states" is known by observation. Then ... in which sense isn't that scientific observation demonstrating the existence of the potential for the universe to be in different states?! (Though I want to note that I probably would not use the word "existence" to describe the situation, as it smells a bit like a category error, specifically it smells like fallacious reification.) > Define "should". Haha, sorry, I didn't mean to sneak in another reference to morality or anything like that ;-) I simply meant which reasons you would give to anyone who was interested, or possibly to humanity as a whole, to try and convince them to care about morality under that definition.
  - sonusario 8y ago
    >> The thought experiment was scientific evidence? > Well, I guess you could even look at it that way (it is a question about thought that we are trying to answer, after all), but I'd tend to think that that is a category error, strictly speaking, in that we are dealing with a formal (language) system, so it's more on the proof side of things. Unless you consider it a question of finding agreement about definitions, in which case that thought experiment is simply an exercise in (empirically) determining the definition that you are using. Let me see if I can show you what I am getting at (looking for yes/no answers but I'm not going to stop you from digging deeper, lol): Are all claims about reality scientifically testable? > I don't see any reason to think that representation is optional. Can't something be true regardless of whether or not it's being represented? > Every instance of Peano axioms that I can think of has a physical representation, just as every instance of cake that I can think of has physical representation. Wouldn't that be because you can't think of those things without a representation, not because they are dependent upon a representation? > Making the assumption that there is such a thing as immaterial Peano axioms seems to me as reasonable as making the assumption that there is such a thing as immaterial cake. So what material(s) are the Peano axioms composed of? > ... some people think that things that exist for a span of time that has no extent (like, 0 seconds) can be said to exist ... Heh, yeah I don't even know what that means... > In my book, that is a pretty useless definition... Do you have any definition for "exist" that you consider useful? >> That "the universe can change states" is known by observation. > Then ... in which sense isn't that scientific observation demonstrating the existence of the potential for the universe to be in different states?! Yes. > I simply meant which reasons you would give to anyone who was interested, or possibly to humanity as a whole, to try and convince them to care about morality under that definition. I'd probably say a reason for someone to care about morality would be if they cared to maximize joy/happiness in themselves and others.
    - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
      > Let me see if I can show you what I am getting at (looking for yes/no answers but I'm not going to stop you from digging deeper, lol): Are all claims about reality scientifically testable? I am not quite sure I understand what you are getting at. I mean, it's obviously possible for someone to make the claim "I own a real undetectable pet dragon" ... so, given that such claims can be made, not all claims about reality are scientifically testable?! The only possible objection to that that I can see would be that if you define "reality" to require testability, then "real undetectable" is a category error--but then, that's just a matter of definition, and either definition seems to be in common use, and usefully so, in different contexts, so there is no general answer--you only have to be careful to not construct false equivocations due to this ambiguity. > Can't something be true regardless of whether or not it's being represented? That's a question with a lot of potential for false equivocations. The most problematic seems to be "be", as that tends to be quite ambiguous, and while that is seldom a problem in day-to-day language use, it causes lots of confusion on such questions. For example, "be" in statements like "is A and B true?" usually means "does A and B evaluate to true?" If that is what you mean: How would you evaluate a proposition without having it represented anywhere? If that is not what you mean: Well, what do you mean then? Or are we maybe talking about something like a thought experiment of the sort "suppose you could time travel 3 billion years into the past, what would you evaluate 'true and false' to then?"? While that's a perfectly fine thought experiment that can be insightful, you must not lose sight of the pretty wild assumption of time travel and the fact that it implies a human being present in that hypothetical scenario when you then try to generalize that insight: While a lot of generalizations can be made just fine while ignoring that you made those rather unrealistic assumptions, it is easy to be carried away into territory where suddenly the result is just an artefact of those assumptions. > Wouldn't that be because you can't think of those things without a representation, not because they are dependent upon a representation? Yeah, sure! But the same applies for cake, then, doesn't it? After all, I am not making the claim that "immaterial axioms" cannot mean anything, nor that "immaterial cake" cannot mean anything. The point is: How would we know? Maybe we can, I don't know, but wouldn't you agree that in order to build an argument on it, there should be more to show than "I can put the words 'immaterial cake' together", when all the cake we've ever seen was material? > So what material(s) are the Peano axioms composed of? That's a category error? What material(s) are movies composed of? Or would you say that movies are immaterial (obviously, "immaterial" here meaning "existing without being represented in matter", just as I used it for the Peano axioms)? > Do you have any definition for "exist" that you consider useful? Really, I don't. Or rather, I guess I do, somehow (I mean, I do use the word, so I better have some idea what I mean by it when I use it ;-), but I have no clue how to comprehensively dump that into text. Plus, there are multiple useful definitions, depending on the context. I think it is easier to clarify ambiguous aspects of what I mean in a particular use than to write down a general definition. >> Then ... in which sense isn't that scientific observation demonstrating the existence of the potential for the universe to be in different states?! > Yes. I take it that you mean that it is scientific observation demonstrating the existence of the potential for the universe to be in different states? So ... do you agree then that that is not an example of non-physical reality (which is what you originally proposed it as)?! > I'd probably say a reason for someone to care about morality would be if they cared to maximize joy/happiness in themselves and others. Hu? How did we get there?! I mean, that sure sounds like a good reason to care about something if it gets you there, I just don't see how this reason is connected to your definition!? Let me try and construct an analogous dialog: A: X is a pleasure to eat. B: Please provide evidence for the claim that X is a pleasure to eat, or if you think that asking for evidence is a category error, define what you mean by "being a pleasure to eat". A: Yeah, it's a category error. "A pleasure to eat" concerns the distinction between what tastes good and what tastes bad. B: Please define what you mean by "tastes good" and "tastes bad". A: What tastes good is food that you eat in accordance with what Jane wills. What tastes bad is food that you eat not in accordance with what Jane wills. B: OK ... so, under that definition(!!!): Which reasons would you give to anyone who was interested to try and convince them to care about eating things that are a pleasure to eat under that definition. A: A reason for someone to care about eating things that are a pleasure to eat would be if they cared about enjoying what they eat. How does something being enjoyable to eat connect to Jane's will? It seems to me like the whole part about why anyone should be convinced that eating what Jane wants them to eat is going to be enjoyable is missing? Also, isn't joy and happiness quite accessible to empirical study? Aren't you implicitly saying that it is a category error to ask for evidence that certain acts increase or diminish joy or happiness? Or what would you suggest people to do when they do as Jane/God wants, but they observe decrease in joy and happiness? Do it anyway, because otherwise they aren't eating what is pleasurable/they aren't moral? Or stop eating what they observe to be causing them to puke because a definition of "a pleasure to eat" that makes them puke is kinda useless?

sonusario 8y ago
> I am not quite sure I understand what you are getting at. I was asking my first question in a potential series. How do you determine whether a claim is about reality? ================================================================================ >> Can't something be true regardless of whether or not it's being represented? > How would you evaluate a proposition without having it represented anywhere? If that is not what you mean: Well, what do you mean then? Again, as I've stated before (and asked a question that you didn't answer, which turns out to be pertinent here): >>>> I can do an evaluation, and that would require representation, but my evaluation is to find that [something] is true, not to make it true. I agree that immaterial computation is not possible, but computation is not what is being discussed. Do you think that the [truth of the] statement "'1 < 2' is true under the Peano axioms" is dependent on something material? To add to my previous statement on this having nothing to do with evaluation, and to provide a realistic thought experiment: If someone says "A diamond is on the moon", either it is true or it is not, regardless of its representation or evaluation. Evaluating the claim as true would require observing the diamond on the moon, but that "A diamond is on the moon" is either true or not before such an observation takes place. So, my question "Can't something be true regardless of whether or not it's being represented?" is attempting to ask if the truth of some claim is true or false regardless of its symbolic or conceptual representation. ================================================================================ >>> Every instance of Peano axioms that I can think of has a physical representation, just as every instance of cake that I can think of has physical representation. >> Wouldn't that be because you can't think of those things without a representation, not because they are dependent upon a representation? > ... How would we know? Maybe we can, I don't know, ... By the reasons I've been giving... By the fact that symbols and concepts are not the things they represent. > ... wouldn't you agree that in order to build an argument on it, there should be more to show than "I can put the words 'immaterial cake' together", when all the cake we've ever seen was material? Where have I put the words 'immaterial' and 'axioms' together without first attempting to build up a reason to do so? ================================================================================ >> So what material(s) are the Peano axioms composed of? > That's a category error? Are you asking me or telling me? If you're telling me it is a category error, why? > What material(s) are movies composed of? Image frames. How is this a challenge to my question? > (obviously, "immaterial" here meaning "existing without being represented in matter", just as I used it for the Peano axioms) Do you think that the Peano axioms are material or not material? ================================================================================ > I take it that you mean that it is scientific observation demonstrating the existence of the potential for the universe to be in different states? Yes. > So ... do you agree then that that is not an example of non-physical reality (which is what you originally proposed it as)?! No. The existence of non-physical reality has been demonstrated by scientific observation. The non-physical reality itself was not observed in order to do so. ================================================================================ >> I'd probably say a reason for someone to care about morality would be if they cared to maximize joy/happiness in themselves and others. > Hu? How did we get there?! I mean, that sure sounds like a good reason to care about something if it gets you there, I just don't see how this reason is connected to your definition!? Implicit in my reason is the claim that when one acts according to God's will they will attain maximal joy/happiness. > Also, isn't joy and happiness quite accessible to empirical study? The effects of joy and happiness, yes, joy and happiness itself, I don't know. > Aren't you implicitly saying that it is a category error to ask for evidence that certain acts increase or diminish joy or happiness? No. > Or what would you suggest people to do when they do as Jane/God wants, but they observe decrease in joy and happiness? Do it anyway, because otherwise they aren't eating what is pleasurable/they aren't moral? Or stop eating what they observe to be causing them to puke because a definition of "a pleasure to eat" that makes them puke is kinda useless? Not as mechanical as this, but to answer your question in short: "the global maximum of joy/happiness is achieved through acting according to God's will for your entire life, so don't let dips in local joy/happiness deter you from abiding by God's will".
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
  > I was asking my first question in a potential series. Sure, I wasn't objecting, it just made it a bit unclear what you meant by that first question ... > How do you determine whether a claim is about reality? By looking for statements that as input for their evaluation depend on something that is not just a matter of definition. (And if something is ambiguous by asking for clarification ...) > Again, as I've stated before (and asked a question that you didn't answer, which turns out to be pertinent here): I considered that answered by my answer to the preceding paragraph, but let's see ... > To add to my previous statement on this having nothing to do with evaluation, and to provide a realistic thought experiment: If someone says "A diamond is on the moon", either it is true or it is not, regardless of its representation or evaluation. Evaluating the claim as true would require observing the diamond on the moon, but that "A diamond is on the moon" is either true or not before such an observation takes place. Yes, I agree. > So, my question "Can't something be true regardless of whether or not it's being represented?" is attempting to ask if the truth of some claim is true or false regardless of its symbolic or conceptual representation. The problem with your analogy is that that diamond (or its absence) is represented, in the form of the diamond (or its absence). It's a claim about external reality, or a description of a pattern in external (physical) reality. That pattern is there, even without anyone conceptualizing it. But claims about mathematical definitions are not about anything unless there is someone/something to define them. Mathematics is a formal construct made up of definitions by humans, and evaluated based on rules made up by humans. Claims about mathematics are inherently linked to those definitions, and to those rules of evaluation. A closer analogy would be about "a diamond on the moon", with "the moon" having no referent. Does "a diamond is on the moon" have a truth value if there is no moon? > By the reasons I've been giving... By the fact that symbols and concepts are not the things they represent. Well, but that seems to be exactly what your argument is built on?! Though I think we might also have been talking past each other on this, but that might be cleared up by what's below ... > Where have I put the words 'immaterial' and 'axioms' together without first attempting to build up a reason to do so? I don't think you did. But all the attempts at building up reason to do so seem to not succeed, and in part because some of them seem to just be elaborate ways to put the words together. > Are you asking me or telling me? If you're telling me it is a category error, why? I am telling you, because axioms are not made of a material. > Image frames. How is this a challenge to my question? It is a demonstration of the same category error, or so I would think ... I am slightly confused by your answer, though. So, you think that images frames are a material, and movies are made of this material? So, like, MPEG files contain a material substance called "image frames" (which constitute the movie)? > Do you think that the Peano axioms are material or not material? I would tend towards saying that they are not material, in the same way that I would say that movies are not material. But that does not mean that I think that the Peano axioms can be said to exist absent a material representation, just as I wouldn't think that movies can be said to exist absent a material representation. The point is that when you refer to a DVD as "a movie", you are expressing that you are talking about properties of that DVD that are not dependent on that specific DVD, or even on a DVD at all. You are talking about properties that can be mapped to an almost arbitrary material, hence the specific material is not significant to the discussion of the movie, hence the concept of a movie does not concern itself with materials. But that is no reason to believe that a movie could exist without material representation. An expression of the form "movies are not material" only says something about which aspects are relevant to the abstraction, not about the underlying reality of instances of movies. > No. The existence of non-physical reality has been demonstrated by scientific observation. The non-physical reality itself was not observed in order to do so. Oh, that's where you are coming from, I see! Would you also say that electrons are part of non-physical reality, for example? Mind you, we have never observed electrons themselves! > Implicit in my reason is the claim that when one acts according to God's will they will attain maximal joy/happiness. Well, sure, but then that's still mostly just the same claim using different words, not a reason to be convinced it's actually true? > Not as mechanical as this, but to answer your question in short: "the global maximum of joy/happiness is achieved through acting according to God's will for your entire life, so don't let dips in local joy/happiness deter you from abiding by God's will". And the global maximum of eating pleasure is achieved through eating according to Jane's will for your entire life, so don't let dips in local pleasure deter you from abiding by Jane's will. Are you convinced yet that eating the way Jane wants you to is the way to go? If not, why not?

sonusario 7y ago
> Sure, I wasn't objecting, it just made it a bit unclear what you meant by that first question ... Sorry about that, I wasn't explicit with that as part of my intention. ================================================================================ > By looking for statements that as input for their evaluation depend on something that is not just a matter of definition. How would a claim only depending on something that is just a matter of definition indicate that it is not about reality? How do you determine whether a claim depends on something that is not just a matter of definition? Isn't the claim "1 + 9 = 10" a claim about reality by virtue of it being a claim (because a claim asserts something as true, and to be true is to be in accordance with reality, so "1 + 9 = 10" is to say that "'1 + 9 = 10' is in accordance with reality")? ================================================================================ > The problem with your analogy is that that diamond (or its absence) is represented, in the form of the diamond (or its absence). Is this to say that the diamond is its representation? > It's a claim about external reality, or a description of a pattern in external (physical) reality. That pattern is there, even without anyone conceptualizing it. Would this mean math doesn't exist outside of the brain because it doesn't have "a pattern in external (physical) reality"? Assuming only physical reality exists, wouldn't that make math a physical part of the brain? > Claims about mathematics are inherently linked to those definitions, and to those rules of evaluation. Are definitions and rules of evaluation physical? > A closer analogy would be about "a diamond on the moon", with "the moon" having no referent. Does "a diamond is on the moon" have a truth value if there is no moon? Agreed. What indicates that the statement "1 < 2" has no referent? ================================================================================ >>>>> Making the assumption that there is such a thing as immaterial Peano axioms seems to me as reasonable as making the assumption that there is such a thing as immaterial cake. >>>> So what material(s) are the Peano axioms composed of? >>> That's a category error? >> Are you asking me or telling me? If you're telling me it is a category error, why? > I am telling you, because axioms are not made of a material. >> Do you think that the Peano axioms are material or not material? > I would tend towards saying that they are not material, in the same way that I would say that movies are not material. But that does not mean that I think that the Peano axioms can be said to exist absent a material representation, just as I wouldn't think that movies can be said to exist absent a material representation. > An expression of the form "movies are not material" only says something about which aspects are relevant to the abstraction, not about the underlying reality of instances of movies. Would the equivalent statement for axioms therefore say "An expression of the form "axioms are not material" only says something about which aspects are relevant to the abstraction, not about the underlying reality of instances of axioms"? ================================================================================ > Would you also say that electrons are part of non-physical reality, for example? Mind you, we have never observed electrons themselves! Depends on how you are defining "observe". Regarding electrons, the effects they produce indicates interactions that are physical in nature. ================================================================================ >> Implicit in my reason is the claim that when one acts according to God's will they will attain maximal joy/happiness. > Well, sure, but then that's still mostly just the same claim using different words, not a reason to be convinced it's actually true? You never asked for reasons to be convinced it's true. You asked for reasons to care. > And the global maximum of eating pleasure is achieved through eating according to Jane's will for your entire life, so don't let dips in local pleasure deter you from abiding by Jane's will. > Are you convinced yet that eating the way Jane wants you to is the way to go? If not, why not? If you cared to attain maximum eating pleasure and you believed of Jane that the maximum eating pleasure could be achieved through eating according to Jane's will your entire life, then Jane's will would be the way to go. To parallel: If you cared to attain maximum joy/happiness and you believed of God that the maximum joy/happiness could be achieved through acting according to God's will your entire life, the God's will would be the way to go.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
  > How would a claim only depending on something that is just a matter of definition indicate that it is not about reality? Because that is the definition of "definition"? "definition" is defined to mean an arbitrary assignment of semantics to symbols, with no requirement that those semantics in any way connect to reality, so you (a) only need to know those assignments in order to evaluate a statement that only references definitions, and (b) it would be a fallacy of equivocation to evaluate a reference to a definition as a reference to an object described by that definition, if there happens to be such a thing. > How do you determine whether a claim depends on something that is not just a matter of definition? By trying to evaluate the claim using only definitions as a source of information, and seeing whether any references remain unresolved this way? > Isn't the claim "1 + 9 = 10" a claim about reality by virtue of it being a claim (because a claim asserts something as true, and to be true is to be in accordance with reality, so "1 + 9 = 10" is to say that "'1 + 9 = 10' is in accordance with reality")? "to be true is to be in accordance with reality" is not something I would agree with. To be in accordance with reality implies being true, but the other way around is not true, because we also use the word "true" to refer to statements derived from formal systems, and formal systems are not reality. The difference between the two uses of the word is that truths in formal systems are only relative to that formal system, which itself is arbitrarily defined, which is why the same statement can be true relative to one formal system and at the same time false relative to another formal system. As I mentioned earlier, '1 + 9 = 10' is not true. It is true under Peano axioms. Let's throw those away, an define a new axiom: '(1 + 9 = 10) = false'. Now, '1 + 9 = 10' is false. > Is this to say that the diamond is its representation? It's not so much "its" representation, as there can be many representations of the same information, but a diamond existing in some place certainly does represent the information that a diamond exists in that place, doesn't it? As in: You can potentially extract the information that a diamond exists in that place from the arrangement of matter that makes up the diamond!? > Would this mean math doesn't exist outside of the brain because it doesn't have "a pattern in external (physical) reality"? > Assuming only physical reality exists, wouldn't that make math a physical part of the brain? That seems to me like a confusion of the abstraction and the underlying representation. Yes, mathematics consists of axioms, and much like I see no reason to think that movies can exist absent a physical/material medium, I don't see a reason to think that axioms, and thus mathematics, can exist absent a physical/material medium--though I don't see why it would have to be a brain in either case, and DVDs and math textbooks seem to suggest that it doesn't, though either certainly can in principle be represented physically in a brain, sure. But the abstraction of mathematics is about the physical representation just as much as movies are, and to avoid some potential distractions, let's assume we are talking about a cartoon: Does a cartoon have "a pattern in external (physical) reality", in the sense that there is a reality "out there" that is described by the cartoon? Also, while there is nothing wrong with making the assumption that only physical reality exists for the argument's sake, there isn't really any need to. There is no problem with being open to the possibility that movies don't need physical representation to exist somehow. But there is no reason to believe that they in fact can until that has been demonstrated, when all movies we have ever encountered so far had a physical representation. > Are definitions and rules of evaluation physical? For definitions: No, the same way that movies aren't physical. For rules of evaluation: Well, for defined rules of evaluation, see definitions. But of course, you can look at the whole world as a computation, in which case the world is nothing but evaluation, and the rules of that evaluation essentially would be what makes up "the physical". > Agreed. What indicates that the statement "1 < 2" has no referent? You are shifting the burden of proof? I didn't claim that it has no referent, I am simply pointing out that there is no truth value if there is no referent, so if you want to make the claim that there is a truth value, you would have to demonstrate that there is a referent. > Would the equivalent statement for axioms therefore say "An expression of the form "axioms are not material" only says something about which aspects are relevant to the abstraction, not about the underlying reality of instances of axioms"? Sure. > Depends on how you are defining "observe". Regarding electrons, the effects they produce indicates interactions that are physical in nature. So, are you saying then that the effects of the potential of the universe to change state that we observe are not physical in nature? Because if they were physical, it seems you are saying, then the potential of the universe to change state would also be physical, wouldn't it? But if those effects aren't physical, wouldn't that then mean that we don't have scientific evidence for the potential of the universe to change state? I am just wondering what distinguishes electrons from the potential of the universe to change state, that the effects of one scientifically establishes it as part of physical reality, while the effects of the other scientifically establishes it as part of non-physical reality!? > You never asked for reasons to be convinced it's true. You asked for reasons to care. Isn't being convinced it's true a requirement for caring? If someone said "You should do this work for me if you want to get paid by me" ... would you or anyone care if they weren't reasonably sure that the person making the claim actually had the money to pay them? I mean, how is that claim alone a reason to care if there is no reason to believe the consequence of being paid will actually materialize? > If you cared to attain maximum eating pleasure and you believed of Jane that the maximum eating pleasure could be achieved through eating according to Jane's will your entire life, then Jane's will would be the way to go. If you cared to attain maximum wealth, and you believed that maximum wealth could be attained through shooting yourself in the head, then shooting yourself in the head would be the way to go. Do you agree?

sonusario 7y ago
> ... "definition" is defined to mean an arbitrary assignment of semantics to symbols, with no requirement that those semantics in any way connect to reality ... What indicates to you that your definition of 'definition' isn't an arbitrary assignment of semantics to symbols, with semantics that don't in any way connect to reality? >> How do you determine whether a claim depends on something that is not just a matter of definition? > By trying to evaluate the claim using only definitions as a source of information, and seeing whether any references remain unresolved this way. To rephrase, are you saying "a claim depends on something that is not just a matter of definition when evaluated using only definitions and there are remaining unresolved references"? ================================================================================ > "to be true is to be in accordance with reality" is not something I would agree with. To be in accordance with reality implies being true... What is your definition of "true"? If "To be in accordance with reality implies being true", then I can replace "in accordance with reality" with "true" in a sentence. Now, if I am understanding you correctly, according to you I can't do that the other way around. In either case I can still rephrase what you've said. "'to be true is to be in accordance with reality' is not something I would agree with" then becomes "'to be true is to be true' is not something I would agree with" which follows from "To be in accordance with reality implies being true". So, either you're just wrong, because true is true, or there is some separate word or adjective we need to use while we speak of truth. > To be in accordance with reality implies being true, but the other way around is not true, because we also use the word "true" to refer to statements derived from formal systems, and formal systems are not reality. When you say "we also use the word 'true' to refer to statements derived from formal systems", would I be correct in saying that something is 'true' under a formal system, when it is consistent with that system? If so, is "consistent with a formal system" a reality or a derivation from a formal system? In other words: is the word 'true' in the statement "It is true that '1+9=10' is consistent with the Peano axioms" referring to derivation from a formal system, or is it referring to being in accord with reality? In other words yet again (regarding my above statement indicating that we may need a word or adjective to separate how we speak of truth): is the statement "It is true that '1 + 9 = 10' is consistent with the Peano axioms" 'formally true' or 'really true'? > As I mentioned earlier, '1 + 9 = 10' is not true. It is true under Peano axioms. Let's throw those away, an define a new axiom: '(1 + 9 = 10) = false'. Now, '1 + 9 = 10' is false. You didn't change anything though. Saying "now it is false" implies that something changed of either the axioms themselves or the statement '1 + 9 = 10'. '1 + 9 = 10' is true under the Peano axioms and false under the '(1 + 9 = 10) = false' axiom. Without proper context '1 + 9 = 10' is not able to be evaluated. With proper context it is always true of false depending on that context. Another question that I think is pertinent to our conversation regarding '1 + 9 = 10': What is a number? ================================================================================ > ... I don't see a reason to think that axioms, and thus mathematics, can exist absent a physical/material medium ... If math didn't exist absent a physical/material medium, then could you observe it? If so, then wouldn't all math be a reality, if not, then why consider it not able to exist absent a physical medium? Perhaps this is another case of confusing abstraction and the underlying representation, in which case, what is abstraction and how can it be represented in different ways but also be dependent on its representation? >> Are definitions and rules of evaluation physical? > For definitions: No, the same way that movies aren't physical. This seems to fly in the face of you stating "There is no problem with being open to the possibility that movies don't need physical representation to exist somehow. But there is no reason to believe that they in fact can until that has been demonstrated, when all movies we have ever encountered so far had a physical representation". Are you, summed together with the context of other things you've stated, saying: definitions and rules are non-physical, but there is no reason to think that there exists anything besides the representations of things, and all representations are physical? ================================================================================ >>> The problem with your analogy is that that diamond (or its absence) is represented, in the form of the diamond (or its absence). It's a claim about external reality, or a description of a pattern in external (physical) reality. That pattern is there, even without anyone conceptualizing it. ... A closer analogy would be about "a diamond on the moon", with "the moon" having no referent. Does "a diamond is on the moon" have a truth value if there is no moon? >> Agreed. What indicates that the statement "1 < 2" has no referent? > You are shifting the burden of proof? I didn't claim that it has no referent, I am simply pointing out that there is no truth value if there is no referent, so if you want to make the claim that there is a truth value, you would have to demonstrate that there is a referent. I analogized "1 < 2" being true or false regardless of its symbolic or conceptual representation to "There is a diamond on the moon" being true or false regardless of its symbolic or conceptual representation. You stated that a 'closer analogy would be about "a diamond on the moon", with "the moon" having no referent' because the objects in my diamond-moon analogy have physical presence and "1 < 2" does not. If you are "simply pointing out that there is no truth value if there is no referent" and not saying that "'1 < 2' has no referent", then you haven't challenged my analogy because you've only asserted "if". You drawing a "closer analogy" would seem to indicate that you intended to claim that "1 < 2" has no referent as a challenge to my analogy. Which is the case? ================================================================================ >>> An expression of the form "movies are not material" only says something about which aspects are relevant to the abstraction, not about the underlying reality of instances of movies. >> Would the equivalent statement for axioms therefore say "An expression of the form "axioms are not material" only says something about which aspects are relevant to the abstraction, not about the underlying reality of instances of axioms"? > Sure. What, then, constitutes an instance of an axiom that is analogous to an instance of a movie? ================================================================================ > I am just wondering what distinguishes electrons from the potential of the universe to change state, that the effects of one scientifically establishes it as part of physical reality, while the effects of the other scientifically establishes it as part of non-physical reality!? The potential for the universe being in a different state does not effect anything. ================================================================================ > Isn't being convinced it's true a requirement for caring? Not necessarily. Morality is a topic. You can care about what someone has to say about morality without being convince of what they are saying. This conversation is an example. You care enough about what I have to say to continue asking what I have to say about morality, but, unless you've been holding out on me ;), you're obviously not convinced that what I am saying is true. After caring about what I) had to say, you would only act toward following what I am saying regarding morality if you were convinced what I was saying was true. >> If you cared to attain maximum wealth, and you believed that maximum wealth could be attained through shooting yourself in the head, then shooting yourself in the head would be the way to go. > Do you agree? Absolutely.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
  > What indicates to you that your definition of 'definition' isn't an arbitrary assignment of semantics to symbols, with semantics that don't in any way connect to reality? Nothing does, because that is exactly what it is? But mind you that that does not mean that whether there is a consensus on this definition is not a question of reality. Just because definitions are arbitrary, doesn't mean that you can't get together with other people and agree on a common definition, to make it useful for communication, nor that you can't empirically determine whether such an agreement exists. > To rephrase, are you saying "a claim depends on something that is not just a matter of definition when evaluated using only definitions and there are remaining unresolved references"? Well, yeah? > What is your definition of "true"? Either consistent with reality or derived from axioms. > If "To be in accordance with reality implies being true", then I can replace "in accordance with reality" with "true" in a sentence. If "To be a rat implies being a mammal", then I can replace "a rat" with "a mammal" in a sentence. "'To be a mammal is being a rat' is not something I would agree with" then becomes "'To be a rat is being a rat' is not something I would agree with". So, all mammals are rats then? (In other words: No, you can't?) > When you say "we also use the word 'true' to refer to statements derived from formal systems", would I be correct in saying that something is 'true' under a formal system, when it is consistent with that system? I guess it depends on what exactly you mean by "consistent". A statement where neither that statement nor its negation can be derived/proven from a given formal system arguably can be considered consistent with that formal system (i.e., not inconsistent), in which case that implication isn't true. > In other words yet again (regarding my above statement indicating that we may need a word or adjective to separate how we speak of truth): is the statement "It is true that '1 + 9 = 10' is consistent with the Peano axioms" 'formally true' or 'really true'? That is 'formally true', I guess, though the statement is potentially ambiguous, because: Ultimately, behind every abstraction of a formal system that we have encountered so far, there is some physical evaluator or group of evaluators, and whether some proof is accepted as correct or not is ultimately decided by those evaluators/by a consensus of those evaluators. So, in that sense, every 'formal truth' is a 'real truth' about evaluators in the world, and whether they agree on the evaluation result, in much the same way that every (arbitrary) definition is a 'real truth' about definers in the world, and whether they agree on a definition. > Another question that I think is pertinent to our conversation regarding '1 + 9 = 10': What is a number? How about 'a more abstract word'? (Plus, I guess, it needs to be usable for measuring and/or counting?) > If math didn't exist absent a physical/material medium, then could you observe it? If so, then wouldn't all math be a reality, if not, then why consider it not able to exist absent a physical medium? Perhaps this is another case of confusing abstraction and the underlying representation, in which case, what is abstraction and how can it be represented in different ways but also be dependent on its representation? That seems like another case of just that confusion, yeah. Consider a hallucinating human. A hallucinating human has ideas that aren't real, right? But yet those ideas are real. That is to say: A hallucinating human is really hallucinating, hallucination is a somewhat physically observable phenomenon. But what they are thinking is not in any way a sensible model of reality, hence not real. 'Real' is used with two different meanings here, and conflating the two is fallacious equivocation. And in the same way, mathematicians can be observed doing math. But that doesn't mean that the math that they are doing is in any way a model of reality. The existence of a thought and the content of that thought are two distinct things. Also, it is not dependent on its representation, it is dependent on a representation. You can not have a movie without representation. That doesn't mean that a movie must be a DVD. The movie is still the same movie when it is photons coming out of a projector. But it is not a(n existing) movie anymore when you destroy all representations of it. > This seems to fly in the face of you stating "[...]" In which way? > Are you, summed together with the context of other things you've stated, saying: definitions and rules are non-physical, but there is no reason to think that there exists anything besides the representations of things, and all representations are physical? No, I don't think so. For one, there is reason to think that things that are not (just) representations do exist, like, say, a rock (unless you count everything as a representation of itself, then I guess that's true by definition, but there is still a distinction between self-representation and "other-representation"). And also, I am not saying that all representations are physical, just that no non-physical representation has ever been demonstrated, and thus there is no reason to believe that that's a thing (yet). > I analogized "1 < 2" being true or false regardless of its symbolic or conceptual representation That simply seems to be a category error, which is the reason why I can't see a referent. '1 < 2' is an expression that can be evaluated using some formal system. Like, there are rules for transforming '1 < 2' into 'true'. You seem to be assuming that there is something left that '1 < 2' could refer to after you have removed the evaluation rules, but I don't see what that could be. > to "There is a diamond on the moon" being true or false regardless of its symbolic or conceptual representation. You stated that a 'closer analogy would be about "a diamond on the moon", with "the moon" having no referent' because the objects in my diamond-moon analogy have physical presence and "1 < 2" does not. '1 < 2' having a physical presence was not a requirement on my part. Not that I have any clue what a non-physical presence would look like, but that isn't my problem, because you are the one making the claim that there is such a thing, so it is up to you to demonstrate that. > If you are "simply pointing out that there is no truth value if there is no referent" and not saying that "'1 < 2' has no referent", then you haven't challenged my analogy because you've only asserted "if". That is actually a perfectly valid challenge, namely pointing out an unjustified assumption? Your argument builds on there being a truth value, and I have pointed out that you have not established that there is a truth value (because that is dependent on '1 < 2' having a referent, which you have not demonstrated), hence your argument fails, and it is now up to you to show that there is in fact a referent (and thus a truth value) if you want to continue using that argument, or to use a different argument, or to take back your claim. > What, then, constitutes an instance of an axiom that is analogous to an instance of a movie? I think I don't understand what you are asking. > The potential for the universe being in a different state does not effect anything. Doesn't it effect, you know, the universe changig its state? Or is that simply a matter of naming? What if we called "the potential for the universe being in a different state" a "unichangetron" instead? A unichangetron is the mechanism that changes the state of the universe, much like an electron is a mechanism that changes the state of the electric field. Is the unichangetron a part of physical reality? > Not necessarily. Morality is a topic. You can care about what someone has to say about morality without being convince of what they are saying. This conversation is an example. You care enough about what I have to say to continue asking what I have to say about morality, but, unless you've been holding out on me ;), you're obviously not convinced that what I am saying is true. That's all true, but also completely besides the point? The question wasn't why I should care about what you have to say (i.e., why I should listen to what you say), but why I should care about morality under the definition you gave (i.e., why I should use that version of morality for anything). > After caring about what I) had to say, you would only act toward following what I am saying regarding morality if you were convinced what I was saying was true. Well, yeah. Which is why I am asking you to justify your assertions, so I can check whether your justifications are convincing. So far, as far as morality is concerned, there have been no justifications, only assertions, and obviously I am not going to be convinced by pure assertions that I wasn't convinced of before. So, if your goal is to convince, you have so far failed to present anything that would even fall into the category of "potentially convincing". >> If you cared to attain maximum wealth, and you believed that maximum wealth could be attained through shooting yourself in the head, then shooting yourself in the head would be the way to go. >> Do you agree? > Absolutely. So, are you saying that if you believe that shooting yourself in the head will make you attain maximum wealth, and you then shoot yourself in the head, you will indeed attain maximum wealth?

sonusario 7y ago
> Nothing does, because that is exactly what it is? So, we can only agree or disagree, and there is no reason to believe your definition of 'definition'? > Just because definitions are arbitrary, doesn't mean that you can't get together with other people and agree on a common definition, to make it useful for communication, nor that you can't empirically determine whether such an agreement exists. How might we empirically determine whether such agreements exist without having agreement on what the term 'agree' means? > Well, yeah? How do you determine that there are actual unresolved references, and that it is not just a deficiency in your definitions? ================================================================================ > Either consistent with reality or derived from axioms. Why is that your definition of "true"? Also what are your definitions of "consistent" and "derived"? ================================================================================ > ... (In other words: No, you can't?) Agreed. ================================================================================ > So, in that sense, every 'formal truth' is a 'real truth' about evaluators in the world... You may need to go into more depth for me because this seems to walk back on previous statements you've made. Above you defined "true" as "Either consistent with reality or derived from axioms". It seems that you agree with calling 'consistent with reality' a 'real truth' and 'derived from axioms' a 'formal truth'. Now you've stated that "... every 'formal truth' is a 'real truth' ...". Wouldn't that in some way negate the most of the emphasis provided by the term 'formal truth'? ================================================================================ > How about 'a more abstract word'? A number is 'a more abstract word'?? ================================================================================ > And in the same way, mathematicians can be observed doing math. But that doesn't mean that the math that they are doing is in any way a model of reality. Does that mean that the math isn't a model of reality though? > The existence of a thought and the content of that thought are two distinct things. Does that establish that the content of a thought doesn't really exist though? ================================================================================ > But it is not a(n existing) movie anymore when you destroy all representations of it. Are you making a distinction between a representation and the thing being represented? It seems that your definition of 'representation' also includes the thing being represented, but that is a definition you deny later on when you state "For one, there is reason to think that things that are not (just) representations do exist, like, say, a rock (unless you count everything as a representation of itself, then I guess that's true by definition, but there is still a distinction between self-representation and "other-representation")". >>>> Are definitions and rules of evaluation physical? >>> For definitions: No, the same way that movies aren't physical. >> This seems to fly in the face of you stating "[...]" > In which way? "... the same way that movies aren't physical." and "... all movies we have ever encountered so far had a physical representation.", and now also "But it is not a(n existing) movie anymore when you destroy all representations of it." To paraphrase my understanding of your position: "All movies encountered have had physical representation." K "Definitions are not physical in the same way that movies aren't physical." Contradicts the previous line a bit... "When all representations of a movie are destroyed, that movie no longer exists." Wait, if there are only physical representations of movies, then, even if I'm confusing abstraction and representation, how can movies be non-physical in any way? Again this could be another case of confusing abstraction and the underlying representation, and if that is the case, what is 'abstraction', what does it mean for something to be an abstraction, and do particular abstractions have physical representation? ================================================================================ > And also, I am not saying that all representations are physical, just that no non-physical representation has ever been demonstrated, and thus there is no reason to believe that that's a thing (yet). This back-and-forth between us started off of me having stated "Math is not testable with the scientific method, but it is obviously compatible with science" and you had replied "If you mean that axioms are not testable, that's simply a category error because axioms are not claims about reality." Now, if you're not saying "that all representations are physical", and are saying "that no non-physical representation has ever been demonstrated", wouldn't that, at the very least, leave the question open to axioms being claims about reality? ================================================================================ >> I analogized "1 < 2" being true or false regardless of its symbolic or conceptual representation > That simply seems to be a category error, which is the reason why I can't see a referent. '1 < 2' is an expression that can be evaluated using some formal system. Like, there are rules for transforming '1 < 2' into 'true'. You seem to be assuming that there is something left that '1 < 2' could refer to after you have removed the evaluation rules, but I don't see what that could be. Why are you equating the "symbolic or conceptual representation" of '1 < 2' to the "evaluation rules" of '1 < 2'? > '1 < 2' having a physical presence was not a requirement on my part. Not that I have any clue what a non-physical presence would look like, but that isn't my problem, because you are the one making the claim that there is such a thing, so it is up to you to demonstrate that. I have no qualms with ending our discussion if your taking the middle ground of "I don't know". I could go on, but I really don't care to. You initially challenged my assertion regarding math and science, my claims namely being on the grounds of math not being physical, by claiming that I was making a category error (at the time from my vantage point, you seemed to be saying only the physical exists). My goal has been to bring things to a middle ground, but if you haven't been or are no longer making claims against the non-physical, then we are at where I wanted to be. You can challenge claims of the non-physical, to be sure, but at this juncture I prefer to shoot down claims that assert the non-physical doesn't exist, of which you no longer appear to me to be claiming. >> If you are "simply pointing out that there is no truth value if there is no referent" and not saying that "'1 < 2' has no referent", then you haven't challenged my analogy because you've only asserted "if". > That is actually a perfectly valid challenge, namely pointing out an unjustified assumption? Your argument builds on there being a truth value, and I have pointed out that you have not established that there is a truth value (because that is dependent on '1 < 2' having a referent, which you have not demonstrated), hence your argument fails, and it is now up to you to show that there is in fact a referent (and thus a truth value) if you want to continue using that argument, or to use a different argument, or to take back your claim. Your paragraph here is a valid challenge. Your pointing out of an unjustified assumption was not explicit previously. What makes "'1 < 2' has a referent" an unjustified assumption in the context of my argument? Yes I have not established it, but what would make me unjustified in assuming it? ================================================================================ >>>>> An expression of the form "movies are not material" only says something about which aspects are relevant to the abstraction, not about the underlying reality of instances of movies. >>>> Would the equivalent statement for axioms therefore say "An expression of the form "axioms are not material" only says something about which aspects are relevant to the abstraction, not about the underlying reality of instances of axioms"? >>> Sure. >> What, then, constitutes an instance of an axiom that is analogous to an instance of a movie? > I think I don't understand what you are asking. What did you mean by "instances of movies"? ================================================================================ >> The potential for the universe being in a different state does not effect anything. > Doesn't it effect, you know, the universe changing its state? No. The potential for the universe being in a different state is not a mechanism by which the universe changes state. ================================================================================ > ... why I should care about morality under the definition you gave (i.e., why I should use that version of morality for anything). First "care" and "use" are two very different questions. Again, define should ;). Why should you use the version of morality of which I am speaking? Because it is the true one (I recognize that I have not established this). > So, are you saying that if you believe that shooting yourself in the head will make you attain maximum wealth, and you then shoot yourself in the head, you will indeed attain maximum wealth? Absolutely not.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
  [part 1] > So, we can only agree or disagree, and there is no reason to believe your definition of 'definition'? I'm not really sure what you are asking?! I am telling you what I think the generally accepted definition is. That's an empirical claim, and it's up to you whether you take my word for it, check other sources, or do an investigation yourself, just as with every other empirical claim? > How might we empirically determine whether such agreements exist without having agreement on what the term 'agree' means? By not using the term 'agree' in the empirical investigation?! Though I don't quite see what the point of that limitation is? If there is agreement on what 'agree' means, as seems to be common among users of the English language, then why would you want to avoid the term? > How do you determine that there are actual unresolved references, and that it is not just a deficiency in your definitions? I am not quite sure what you mean by "deficiency in the definitions"? If you mean that there are terms in the statement that I have no definition for, then I try to obtain a definition for those terms. So, if I can ask whoever made the statement, I might ask them for the definition they were using. If that isn't an (easy) option, I might look it up in dictionaries. Or I might try to derive it from the context in which the statement was made (in particular when I do know definitions, but it's multiple mutually-exclusive ones). If you mean that my definitions are not the ones that the person making the statement meant ... well, then I get the wrong idea of what they were saying? But mind you that when I said "there are unresolved references remaining", I don't mean "unresolved references to definitions". When I evaluate "Polar bears are green", then "polar bear", for example, refers to a concept that refers to an observable entity. So, I can resolve "polar bear" to that concept using the definition of "polar bear". But at the end there remains the reference to the observable thing. That's what I am talking about. > Why is that your definition of "true"? Because that is the generally accepted definition, and as such it is useful to have a definition that matches what other people understand when you use the term. Also, it's probably the generally accepted definition because those two concepts are useful, even though having them both use the same label maybe is unfortunate. > Also what are your definitions of "consistent" and "derived"? In this particular context: Consistent: Not leading to contradictions. Derived: Arrived at by applying transformations/identities specified by the axioms. You could also say proven using the axioms. > It seems that you agree with calling 'consistent with reality' a 'real truth' and 'derived from axioms' a 'formal truth'. Seemed like a useful short hand, so I went with it, sure. > Now you've stated that "... every 'formal truth' is a 'real truth' ...". Wouldn't that in some way negate the most of the emphasis provided by the term 'formal truth'? No, that is just a confusion of layers of abstraction. Within the framework of mathematics, noone empirically investigates whether "1 + 9 = 10", because that would be a category error, simply by definition. Within mathematics, 1 + 9 = 10 is defined to be formally true (unless explicitly stated that standard axioms don't apply), but noone is making a claim about real truth, which is why investigating that question empirically is a category error: Empirical investigation applies to claims of real truth, not to claims of formal truth, just as proofs apply only to formal truths, but not to real truths. But that doesn't mean that the claim that "'1 + 9 = 10' is a formal truth in mathematics" isn't an empirical claim. For every supposed formal truth in mathematics, you can investigate empirically whether that is indeed the case, namely by investigating what the consensus on definitions among mathematicians is. > A number is 'a more abstract word'?? Seems like a pretty succinct description? Though, as I also wrote, it probably needs to be usable for measuring or counting, otherwise lots of mathematical objects would fall under that definition that are not usually considered numbers. > Does that mean that the math isn't a model of reality though? Yes, of course, that's exactly what it means! Mind you though that that doesn't mean that some parts of mathematics can't be used to model some aspects of reality. But that is a matter of empirical investigation. Does Newton's law of gravity predict the movement of masses that don't collide? That is an empirical question of whether a particular mathematical structure is useful for modeling an aspect of reality. As it turned out, it is quite useful indeed. But as it later also turned out, it's not actually a (perfect) model of reality, and the theory of relativity gives more accurate results, even though it uses a quite different mathematical structure. But then, there is no reason to think that that is a perfect model of reality either. > Does that establish that the content of a thought doesn't really exist though? I'm not sure what you are trying to say here? What do you mean by "really exist"? Are you saying that someone who is hallucinating doesn't have those ideas that we usually call "hallucinations"? > Are you making a distinction between a representation and the thing being represented? Well, yes?! > It seems that your definition of 'representation' also includes the thing being represented, but that is a definition you deny later on when you state "For one, there is reason to think that things that are not (just) representations do exist, like, say, a rock (unless you count everything as a representation of itself, then I guess that's true by definition, but there is still a distinction between self-representation and "other-representation")". I'm not sure where you see a contradiction here?! I am just pointing out that no matter how you prefer to generally define 'representation' (and different definitions are useful in different contexts), you can distinguish between things representing themselves and things representing other things, i.e., you can (conceptually) distinguish a rock from a picture of a rock or from the word "rock". > Again this could be another case of confusing abstraction and the underlying representation, and if that is the case, what is 'abstraction', what does it mean for something to be an abstraction, and do particular abstractions have physical representation? I suppose it is. When you say "movie X is funny", it is completely irrelevant to the meaning of that statement how that movie is physically represented. The thing that you refer to as "the movie" here is a concept that is not concerned with material aspects. You can use pretty much any object (as long as it has sufficient degrees of freedom) to encode that movie into it, and that statement would still have the same meaning. So, movies are not material in the sense that any statement that you make about a movie retains its meaning no matter what representation you choose for the movie/the statement applies to all representations of it that there are, have been, or will be. Really, as far as the abstraction is concerned, things would still work perfectly fine with a movie that had no physical representation--if that were a thing somehow. As for what an abstraction is, I think the summary at the top of the wikipedia article is a good one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction In the specific case, the material representation has no subjectively valued purposes to the concept of a movie. As to whether particular abstractions have physical representation: Well, given that our brains constantly operate using abstractions (all of language is nothing but abstractions), I would say that obviously yes?! Mind you, none of this is about "empirical properties of movies" or anything of that sort. The claim isn't "if you take a DVD and put it under the microscope, you will find that it is immaterial" or anything like that. It's simply a matter of what abstractions are concerned with by definition, and the definition of "movie" simply is not concerned with physical representation. > Now, if you're not saying "that all representations are physical", and are saying "that no non-physical representation has ever been demonstrated", wouldn't that, at the very least, leave the question open to axioms being claims about reality? No. What claims are about is a matter of intention, and mathematicians don't intend to make statements about reality when they declare axioms, thus they are not claims about reality. It's simply a matter of definition: Axioms are defined to be unproved statements that are assumed to be (formally) true for the purpose of making derivations from them. When I say "Joe is a baker", that doesn't leave the question open whether I am talking about John, and when a mathematician says "I will assume that 1 is a natural number", that doesn't leave the question open whether it's an assumption. That doesn't mean that John isn't a baker, nor that the structure that can be derived from the Peano axioms can't be used to model aspects of reality. But that's not what either of those claims is about. > Why are you equating the "symbolic or conceptual representation" of '1 < 2' to the "evaluation rules" of '1 < 2'? I am not. I am saying that there is no such thing as the meaning of a statement in a formal language absent the rules of that formal language. It's like asking "is a pun funny regardless which language it is in?" It's a category error. The pun is a property of the language, or possibly of a family of related languages: If you remove the language from it, there is no pun left. "A pun in English, but absent English" has no referent.

sonusario 7y ago
Given how long it can take to make responses, for us to start dipping into doing two part posts when we aren't making much progress is likely a waist time for the both of us (I wouldn't say no progress because we have still been defining and attempting to understand each other's terms). Given the context of some of the things we've discussed and being aware of how each of us is defining terms, I'm going to start from where our discussion began and see if we can come to a quicker agreement/disagreement. I've still answered what I consider highlights of our discussion from your last reply, but I'll be putting more stock into the starting point of our discussion, attempting to be more careful with any assumptions made. As always if you think I'm intentionally avoiding something by my skimming, feel free to bring it up. === zAy> Being untestable is about as incompatible with science as you can get. I replied "Math is not testable with the scientific method, but it is obviously compatible with science". Instead, this time I'll ask two questions: What does it mean for something to be incompatible with science? and What determines that not being testable is "about as incompatible with science as you can get"? === > I'm not really sure what you are asking?! I'm asking whether I am following your statements correctly. You, to paraphrase, seemed to have stated that we can only agree or disagree on definitions, having no reason to believe any definition is true because all definitions are arbitrary "by definition". Does this sum up your position correctly? > Seems like a pretty succinct description? Though, as I also wrote, it probably needs to be usable for measuring or counting, otherwise lots of mathematical objects would fall under that definition that are not usually considered numbers. How is it really a succinct description if "lots of mathematical objects would fall under that definition that are not usually considered numbers"? > you can (conceptually) distinguish a rock from a picture of a rock or from the word "rock". What do you intend to mean by adding the modifier "conceptually" to "distinguish"? I probably agree, but I want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly. I would add that you can distinguish a rock from a picture of a rock, from the word "rock", and from the concept of a rock. Can or can you not do the same with mathematics, and why or why not? > So, movies are not material in the sense that any statement that you make about a movie retains its meaning no matter what representation you choose for the movie/the statement applies to all representations of it that there are, have been, or will be. So, in that sense, would you agree that the non-physical exists in reality? > What claims are about is a matter of intention, and mathematicians don't intend to make statements about reality when they declare axioms, thus they are not claims about reality. How do you know that mathematicians don't intend to make statements about reality when they declare axioms? Even if they don't intend to make claims about reality, couldn't mathematicians intend to do so? > When someone makes some outlandish claim and you ask "How is that true?", to which they they respond "Why are you saying that I am wrong?", and you say "I am not saying you are wrong, I don't know whether you are wrong, but your claim is unsubstantiated, and since it is your claim, it is up to you to substantiate it." ... would you say that you have taken some sort of middle ground on the outlandish claim? Yes, asking them to substantiate their claim does not mean that you are taking the opposite view point. Having not taking the affirmative or negative position means that you are taking the middle ground... That being said, asking someone to substantiate their claim does mean that you are claiming that their claim is unsubstantiated, meaning that you are not taking the middle ground regarding the evidence they do or don't have to back up their claim. > I have only objected to your unsubstantiated claims that the non-physical exists because they are unsubstantiated. Your objection, that my claim is unsubstantiated, is an unsubstantiated claim. (This claim hear is unsubstantiated because I have given no evidence to support it. Evidence for or against it might be found in previous replies) > Well, sure, but be careful to not confuse rejections of unsubstantiated claims with counter-claims. Sure, but be careful to substantiate your rejections. > Hu? What would make you unjustified in assuming it? The fact that you are assuming it? The definition of "assumption" is "to be accepted as true without justification"? So, if you were giving a justification, it wouldn't be an assumption anymore?! I really don't understand what you are asking me here ... The assumption it self is unjustified, yes, but why am I unjustified in assuming it? Arguments can't be made without assumptions, but the assumptions of arguments should be obvious. I think that "'1 < 2' has a referent" is an obvious assumption in light of the Peano axioms (in part since we both think that the Peano axioms exist (ignoring what we think regarding the nature of the Peano axioms and their derivations)). If you think that is not obvious, why? If you think arguments shouldn't make assumptions at all, then tell me why and give me an example argument with no assumptions. > I guess you could say "copies" instead of "instances". So if the "copies" are material, are the "originals" also material? === >> No. The potential for the universe being in a different state is not a mechanism by which the universe changes state. > How did you determine that? The mechanisms by which something changes state can be determined by science. > I don't see the fundamental difference between "the potential for the universe being in a different state" and "the potential for the electric field being in a different state" There isn't a fundamental difference between those two statements. I used the word "universe" as a catch-all. You could substitute "universe" for just about anything else, if not all things, physical. === > Yeah, and "care" and "listen to" are two different questions as well. If you care about what someone is saying, "listening to" is how you express that. If you care about someone's version of morality, "using it" is how you express that. That is what caring about something means. Fair. > And then you certainly also recognized that you haven't given reasons to be convinced, right? Yes... I explicitly stated this, albeit in different terms. > OK, so: Are you saying that if you believe that the global maximum of eating pleasure is achieved through eating according to Jane's will for your entire life, then if you eat according to Jane's will for your entire life, you will indeed achieve the global maximum of eating pleasure? Absolutely not.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
  [part 1 ... again ... ;-)] > Given how long it can take to make responses, for us to start dipping into doing two part posts when we aren't making much progress is likely a waist time for the both of us [...] Sure, I felt a bit like doing that as well, especially when I couldn't submit my previous response in one piece ;-) > What does it mean for something to be incompatible with science? Well, I guess that's a question that can be answered in a million ways, depending on the context, but the relevant aspect to this discussion probably is this: To be incompatible with science means to be making factual (as in real/non-formal) claims based on methodology that is not demonstrated to be reasonably reliable for determining the truth of such a claim. > What determines that not being testable is "about as incompatible with science as you can get"? The definition of what science/"the scientific method" is? > I'm asking whether I am following your statements correctly. You, to paraphrase, seemed to have stated that we can only agree or disagree on definitions, having no reason to believe any definition is true because all definitions are arbitrary "by definition". Does this sum up your position correctly? No, and that is for the simple reason that "having no reason to believe any definition is true" is a category error, and hence the question doesn't even make sense. Let's say I define that X = 5. Is that definition true? Does it even make sense to ask whether me defining X as 5 is true? The act of assigning meanings to labels is not in the category of things that have a truth value. You might as well be asking whether pouring juice into a glass is true. Or whether singing a song is true. When someone says "I will use the word 'apple' to refer to large, grey animals with trunks" (i.e., they give you the definition they are using), and you ask "but is that definition true?", that is simply a non-sequitur. It's as sensible as asking in response to "I will use 'X' to refer to 5" with "but is that definition true?". And just to make sure this doesn't cause confusion: That does not mean that asking for the truth value of "'apple' as a word for large, grey animals with trunks is commonly accepted in the English language" is a category error. Whether something is a commonly accepted definition for a word in a widely used language is in the category of things that have a truth value, more specifically a "real truth" value, and obviously in this particular case that truth value is false. > How is it really a succinct description if "lots of mathematical objects would fall under that definition that are not usually considered numbers"? Well, then it's not. Combined with what I added after that, it still is, so what's the point of harping on this? I gave you a definition, you think half of that definition is not good enough ... well, how about you use the full definition, then? Especially when I obviously kindof agree that the first part is pretty ambiguous, which presumably is why I added the second part? > What do you intend to mean by adding the modifier "conceptually" to "distinguish"? I probably agree, but I want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly. I am simply trying to avoid the pitfall of hard solipsism. After all, every rock you see is mediated through a picture of that rock on your retina. If there actually is a retina, that is. So, can you really distinguish a rock from a picture of a rock? I think none of that is really all that relevant to the question at hand, and it's kindof enough that you can conceptualize the difference, which is why I added the "(conceptually)", to avoid that possible distraction--but if you agree that we can distinguish a rock from a picture of a rock, then you might as well ignore it. > I would add that you can distinguish a rock from a picture of a rock, from the word "rock", and from the concept of a rock. Yeah, sure. > Can or can you not do the same with mathematics, and why or why not? Well, obviously not the same, as there is no such thing as "a picture of a mathematics"?! But obviously, we can, say, distinguish mathematics from the word "mathematics". So, I guess I am not really sure what the question is? > So, in that sense, would you agree that the non-physical exists in reality? I agree that instances of abstractions that are not concerned with physical representation do exist in reality. That does not mean that I agree that instances of those same abstractions exist without physical representation, for lack of evidence of that being a thing. > How do you know that mathematicians don't intend to make statements about reality when they declare axioms? Because that is how "axiom" is defined (by mathematicians)? > Even if they don't intend to make claims about reality, couldn't mathematicians intend to do so? You mean whether a hypothetical mathematician could be intending to make a claim about reality when declaring it an "axiom"? Well, yes, in the sense that anyone can obviously redefine words however they want? It's the same sense in which I could be talking about a mammal when I say 'apple'. The point is, that still doesn't make elephants a fruit, so the question is kindof pointless. Even if you somehow manage to make someone apply the label 'axiom' to a claim about reality, that helps you nothing with trying to show that all of the not-a-claim-about-reality axioms are claims about reality. > Yes, asking them to substantiate their claim does not mean that you are taking the opposite view point. Having not taking the affirmative or negative position means that you are taking the middle ground... Well, if that is how you use the term, then that's how you use the term, I guess, but it seems to me that it's more appropriate for someone taking a position that is meaningfully on a scale between two other positions--which is very much distinct from not coming to a conclusion. > That being said, asking someone to substantiate their claim does mean that you are claiming that their claim is unsubstantiated, meaning that you are not taking the middle ground regarding the evidence they do or don't have to back up their claim. Sure. Though it's just as much just an expression of how convincing you find someone's arguments as it is some claim of an objective measure of substantiation. > Your objection, that my claim is unsubstantiated, is an unsubstantiated claim. (This claim hear is unsubstantiated because I have given no evidence to support it. Evidence for or against it might be found in previous replies) Well, sure, you can read it that way. But ultimately, in a discussion between two, it's about how convincing your arguments are to the other party, so it's kindof besides the point? > Sure, but be careful to substantiate your rejections. Yeah, I think I am. That is, I explain why your arguments are not convincing (unless they are ...). > The assumption it self is unjustified, yes, but why am I unjustified in assuming it? My point was that you are neither justified nor unjustified (in the sense of being (in)sufficiently justified), because that's a category error. To make an assumption means to declare that you will treat whatever you are saying you assume as true (for the purposes of a particular statement/discussion/argument/whatever), regardless whether there is justification for it or not. Assumptions are not in the category of things that have a level of sufficient justification. If you give a justification for a statement, that that by definition makes it not an assumption. "Justified assumption" is a contradiction in terms like "wet dryness". > Arguments can't be made without assumptions, but the assumptions of arguments should be obvious. And they should be something the other party agrees with, if you goal is to convince. If you assume something to be true that the other party doesn't (yet) think is true, any arguments that you build on that assumption will be unconvincing. Which also means that if the other party challenges your assumption, you then should justify it (making it no longer an assumption). > I think that "'1 < 2' has a referent" is an obvious assumption in light of the Peano axioms (in part since we both think that the Peano axioms exist (ignoring what we think regarding the nature of the Peano axioms and their derivations)). Well, but that is what this is all about? If the Peano axioms are a purely artificial construct of humans, then "'1 < 2' absent humans" has no referent, and your hypothetical scenario that you were asking about was roughly the equivalent of that, arguably. Also, it doesn't really make too much sense to respond to an objection to an assumption with "it should be obvious". I mean, you might have thought that, and that's why you made the assumption, and that's all fine. But the moment the other party tells you they don't agree with your assumption, the equivalent of "but I think you should agree" is not really going to help anyone. > If you think that is not obvious, why? Why I think that it is not obvious that '1 < 2' absent an evaluator aware of the Peano axioms (and more) has a referent? Because as far as I can see that is a statement in a formal system, which has no meaning without that formal system. > If you think arguments shouldn't make assumptions at all, then tell me why and give me an example argument with no assumptions. I am not saying that at all. It just doesn't make sense to make "justified assumptions", because that's a contradiction in terms. > So if the "copies" are material, are the "originals" also material? How would I know? I mean, I have only ever experienced material (in the farthest sense) copies and originals, so I see no reason to think that non-material ones are a thing. But who knows, maybe you have the evidence for non-material copies of movies?!

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago

[part 2] > I have no qualms with ending our discussion if your taking the middle ground of "I don't know" Well, it's obviously up to you what you want to discuss, but I would very much object to the idea that "I don't know" is some kind of middle ground. When someone makes some outlandish claim and you ask "How is that true?", to which they they respond "Why are you saying that I am wrong?", and you say "I am not saying you are wrong, I don't know whether you are wrong, but your claim is unsubstantiated, and since it is your claim, it is up to you to substantiate it." ... would you say that you have taken some sort of middle ground on the outlandish claim? > My goal has been to bring things to a middle ground, but if you haven't been or are no longer making claims against the non-physical, then we are at where I wanted to be. I don't think I have ever made claims against the non-physical, at least not intentionally. I have only objected to your unsubstantiated claims that the non-physical exists because they are unsubstantiated. Though I do wonder: If you say that your goal was to bring things to a middle ground, and you consider "I don't know" to be some sort of middle ground ... do you agree then that we don't know of the existence of anything non-physical? > You can challenge claims of the non-physical, to be sure, but at this juncture I prefer to shoot down claims that assert the non-physical doesn't exist, of which you no longer appear to me to be claiming. Well, sure, but be careful to not confuse rejections of unsubstantiated claims with counter-claims. > What makes "'1 < 2' has a referent" an unjustified assumption in the context of my argument? Yes I have not established it, but what would make me unjustified in assuming it? Hu? What would make you unjustified in assuming it? The fact that you are assuming it? The definition of "assumption" is "to be accepted as true without justification"? So, if you were giving a justification, it wouldn't be an assumption anymore?! I really don't understand what you are asking me here ... > What did you mean by "instances of movies"? Like, a particular DVD, or blue-ray, or MPEG file, or series of pictures on a screen, or whatever ... I guess you could say "copies" instead of "instances". And likewise for axioms, them being remembered in a brain, written on a blackboard, printed in a book ... > No. The potential for the universe being in a different state is not a mechanism by which the universe changes state. How did you determine that? Like, I understand you are making this claim, but I don't see the fundamental difference between "the potential for the universe being in a different state" and "the potential for the electric field being in a different state", or however else you could describe the electron, that would justify any fundamental distinction. So, what are the criteria by which you decided that the potential for the universe being in a different state is not a mechanism by which the universe changes state, that would, when applied to the electron, get you to the conclusion that the electron is a mechanism by which the electric field changes state, which thus would justify the distinction? And the same for any other reasons you give. So far, it seems more like you have the pre-conceived notion that one of those is physical and the other is not, and then you give reasons that seem consistent with either of those positions somehow. But what I am interested in is: Suppose we don't know yet which of those is physical or non-physical, how do we go about finding out? > First "care" and "use" are two very different questions. Again, define should ;). Yeah, and "care" and "listen to" are two different questions as well. If you care about what someone is saying, "listening to" is how you express that. If you care about someone's version of morality, "using it" is how you express that. That is what caring about something means. > Why should you use the version of morality of which I am speaking? Because it is the true one (I recognize that I have not established this). And then you certainly also recognized that you haven't given reasons to be convinced, right? Because that is what I explained I meant when you asked for a definition for "should". I am sorry, but this starts to feel like you are willfully missing the point. > Absolutely not. OK, so: Are you saying that if you believe that the global maximum of eating pleasure is achieved through eating according to Jane's will for your entire life, then if you eat according to Jane's will for your entire life, you will indeed achieve the global maximum of eating pleasure?

sonusario 7y ago
> To be incompatible with science means to be making factual (as in real/non-formal) claims based on methodology that is not demonstrated to be reasonably reliable for determining the truth of such a claim. Why define 'incompatible with science' this way over utilizing some form of the top definitions of 'incompatible' resulting from a quick google search (e.g. "so opposed in character as to be incapable of existing along with science", "incapable of association or harmonious coexistence with science", "that which cannot coexist or be conjoined with science", "not able to exist or work with science")? Also, are you saying that it is the "making" of the claim that is incompatible when using non-demonstrated methodology, or is it the claim itself that is incompatible? How can a methodology be demonstrated to be reasonably reliable for determining the truth of a claim? Why are formal claims excluded from being considered incompatible with science? Is it possible that a claim could be really true even though the methodology used to arrive at that claim has not been demonstrated to be reasonably reliable for determining the truth of such a claim? > The definition of what science/"the scientific method" is? What is the definition of science/"the scientific method"? === > Well, then it's not. ... I obviously kindof agree that the first part is pretty ambiguous, which presumably is why I added the second part Regarding the second part of your description of numbers, to what does "measuring or counting" refer (i.e. what is being measured or counted)? > Well, obviously not the same, as there is no such thing as "a picture of a mathematics"?! But obviously, we can, say, distinguish mathematics from the word "mathematics". So, I guess I am not really sure what the question is? When we distinguish a rock from a picture of a rock, from the word "rock", and from the concept of a rock, we are noting that the rock exists apart from a picture of it, a word of it, and a concept of it. Now that's not difficult to accept because a rock is physical. So when I ask if we can do the same of mathematics, I am seeking an acknowledgement of the non-physical and a reason why if we can, and for a reason why if we cannot. > I agree that instances of abstractions that are not concerned with physical representation do exist in reality. That does not mean that I agree that instances of those same abstractions exist without physical representation, for lack of evidence of that being a thing. Are you saying "not concerned with physical representation" is equivalent to "not material", as in "a movie is not material because it is not concerned with physical representation but is an instance of an abstraction which we have no evidence for or against being physical"? > Because that is how "axiom" is defined (by mathematicians) So all mathematicians agree that they don't intend to make statements about reality when they declare axioms? What your definition of 'axiom'? The most readily available definitions I can find either roughly state that an axiom is "a self-evident truth", "a statement widely accepted as true", or "an assumption without proof for the sake of studying the consequences that follow". None of these indicate that axioms aren't intended to be statements about reality. > Well, yes, in the sense that anyone can obviously redefine words however they want. So would I be correct in stating that you could just be defining 'axiom' however you want, and the statement "axioms are not claims about reality" simply conforms with your definition? > But the moment the other party tells you they don't agree with your assumption, the equivalent of "but I think you should agree" is not really going to help anyone. I haven't only told you "I think you should agree" though. I also asked why you disagree... > If the Peano axioms are a purely artificial construct of humans, then "'1 < 2' absent humans" has no referent ... ... Because as far as I can see ['1 < 2'] is a statement in a formal system, which has no meaning without that formal system. So am I correct in that, given the Peano axioms, it is not obvious to you that '1 < 2' has a referent, because the Peano axioms may or may not be a purely artificial construct of humans. > How would I know? I mean, I have only ever experienced material (in the farthest sense) copies and originals, so I see no reason to think that non-material ones are a thing. But who knows ... So you acknowledge that you don't know whether non-physical things exist? === > How do you know that? Couldn't there be mechanisms by which something changes state that can not be determined by science? How do you know there aren't? Because all of reality as we experience it can be intelligibly explained by science, and since changes in state can be observed by science then there are intelligible explanations for those changes. If in reality there were some changes of state that could not be intelligibly explained, then reality taken as a whole wouldn't be intelligible. If reality as a whole was unintelligible, then it couldn't be fully and intelligibly asserted that "reality is not entirely intelligible". Such a statement is self defeating. > And in the particular case: How did you determine that the mechanism by which the universe changes state can not be determined by science? I don't know what this is asking. > So, electrons are non-physical after all, then? What have I said that lead you to this conclusion? > I assume you agree that the electric field is physical? The potential to change the electric field is not observable, but it exists, therefore, it is non-physical? (I am paraphrasing, obviously, but I think that is roughly your argument applied to electrons?) The electric field is physical, we can observe its effects and things that indicate it has been affected. The potential(s) for the electron field being in a different state is/are not observable via effects or things that indicate it has been affected. > Exactly. So, why would you expect the same reason to be convincing when you use it? What line of reasoning?! My agreement to the modification you gave to my scenario--"If you cared to attain maximum wealth, and you believed that maximum wealth could be attained through shooting yourself in the head, then shooting yourself in the head would be the way to go"--was an assertion that a person ought to follow their beliefs. Unless there is some ambiguity somewhere, "would be the way to go" doesn't bear much resemblance to "you will indeed attain". You modified "then shooting yourself in the head would be the way to go" to say "you then shoot yourself in the head, [then] you will indeed attain maximum wealth", which seemed to become a line of questioning to determine whether I thought a person will get what is in line with their beliefs. It should be fairly obvious that I don't think that is the case, unless one's beliefs are in line with what is true. Have I established what I think is true: no. I acknowledged that I had not substantiated a convincing argument to care about morality (given my definition) when you highlighted that "'care' and 'listen to' are two different questions as well".
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
  [part 1 ... again!] > Why define 'incompatible with science' this way over utilizing some form of the top definitions of 'incompatible' resulting from a quick google search (e.g. "so opposed in character as to be incapable of existing along with science", "incapable of association or harmonious coexistence with science", "that which cannot coexist or be conjoined with science", "not able to exist or work with science")? All of those say pretty much the same, in so far as they are applicable to the situation? > Also, are you saying that it is the "making" of the claim that is incompatible when using non-demonstrated methodology, or is it the claim itself that is incompatible? Science is a "method for making/justifying claims", and as such, it is non-scientific methods that are (potentially) incompatible with it? Plus, obviously, you can justify claims that do have scientific justification via non-scientific methods (like, I dunno, "masses attract because I think 5 is a lucky number")--that justification is obviously non-scientific, but that doesn't change the fact that the claim that masses do attract does have scientific justification. > How can a methodology be demonstrated to be reasonably reliable for determining the truth of a claim? Using science. > Why are formal claims excluded from being considered incompatible with science? Because science is concerned with reality, and determining what is true about reality, and formal claims don't say anything about reality. > Is it possible that a claim could be really true even though the methodology used to arrive at that claim has not been demonstrated to be reasonably reliable for determining the truth of such a claim? Yes, obviously? > What is the definition of science/"the scientific method"? As far as this discussion is concerned, it's the idea that methods you use to justify claims about reality should be demonstrably reliable. > Regarding the second part of your description of numbers, to what does "measuring or counting" refer (i.e. what is being measured or counted)? Distances (in spaces) and cardinality (of sets). > When we distinguish a rock from a picture of a rock, from the word "rock", and from the concept of a rock, we are noting that the rock exists apart from a picture of it, a word of it, and a concept of it. Now that's not difficult to accept because a rock is physical. So when I ask if we can do the same of mathematics, I am seeking an acknowledgement of the non-physical and a reason why if we can, and for a reason why if we cannot. If we can what? Distinguish the word 'mathematics' from the concept of mathematics? > Are you saying "not concerned with physical representation" is equivalent to "not material", as in "a movie is not material because it is not concerned with physical representation but is an instance of an abstraction which we have no evidence for or against being physical"? No, it's not an equivalence, it is just one of the definitions of "not material". It is generally accepted usage to call concepts that are not concerned with material/physical aspects "not material". But there is also the usage of "something possessing attributes otherwise associated with the material, but also not being material", such as "an immaterial horse" or something along those lines. Those two definitions are not interchangeable. > So all mathematicians agree that they don't intend to make statements about reality when they declare axioms? No, just as not all humans agree that the earth is a sphere. > What your definition of 'axiom'? The most readily available definitions I can find either roughly state that an axiom is "a self-evident truth", "a statement widely accepted as true", or "an assumption without proof for the sake of studying the consequences that follow". None of these indicate that axioms aren't intended to be statements about reality. Which might be because they are not all talking exclusively about mathematics? But really, I don't get what the point of all this even is. You can distinguish claims in formal systems and claims about reality, right? And you can distinguish statements declared as assumptions from statements declared as derived or observed truth, right? So, who cares whether all mathematicians agree on the names for these things (no, they don't, if only because mathematicians speak differen languages)? I have pointed out that those categories can be distinguished, and that showing something for one of those categories does not demonstrate truth for the other categories. So, how about we get back to the substance of that, instead of trying to figure out what people call it? > So would I be correct in stating that you could just be defining 'axiom' however you want, and the statement "axioms are not claims about reality" simply conforms with your definition? Well, yes and no. No, in that I used the definition that is commonly accepted, and didn't mean to introduce any unusual definition. But also yes, in the sense that in so far as we are not primarily talking about what the generally accepted definitions are or what other people mean, it doesn't make much sense to do anything other than to go with "well, ok, that's what they mean when they use the word", as long as it is being used consistently. > So am I correct in that, given the Peano axioms, it is not obvious to you that '1 < 2' has a referent, because the Peano axioms may or may not be a purely artificial construct of humans. No. It is not obvious that there is such a thing as "given the Peano axioms", absent humans (or possibly more generalized evaluators). You constantly want to make this assumption, but that assumption really is just the assumption of the existence of the immaterial, and as such it's not a useful basis for demonstrating the existence of the immaterial, because every false claim could be assumed to be true in order to demonstrate that it is true, and thus assuming a claim in order to demonstrate that it is true is not a reliable method for determining the truth of a claim. > So you acknowledge that you don't know whether non-physical things exist? That depends on the definition of "exists". As far as the most commonly used definition is concerned, the non-physical does not exist, because existence by definition implies physicality (when a normal person says "there exists no grocery store in this street", they are not excluding the possibility that a non-physical grocery store exists in the street). For a more general definition that you might find to be used by philosophers, I don't know. > Because all of reality as we experience it can be intelligibly explained by science Hu? Do you mean by that that there is nothing that's left unexplained by science? Or are you saying that whatever science doesn't have an explanation for yet, is (by definition) not part of reality? Or what? > and since changes in state can be observed by science then there are intelligible explanations for those changes. Hu?! I mean, yeah, we can observe changes in state, I guess, but then we also can observe changes in state that we don't have explanations for, can't we? So ... no? > If in reality there were some changes of state that could not be intelligibly explained, then reality taken as a whole wouldn't be intelligible. Well ... maybe? It smells like a setup for equivocation ... > If reality as a whole was unintelligible, then it couldn't be fully and intelligibly asserted that "reality is not entirely intelligible". Such a statement is self defeating. Well ... yeah? The point being? Has anyone made the claim that reality is not entirely intelligible? > The electric field is physical, we can observe its effects and things that indicate it has been affected. The potential(s) for the electron field being in a different state is/are not observable via effects or things that indicate it has been affected. Oh, so your claim is that the potential for the electric field to change state is something distinct from the electron? And analogously for the potential for the universe to change state? Could you explain then what there is to this potential to change the state of the electric field beyond what is described by the theory of the electron and other charged particles (I used only "electron" before for simplicity, but I guess some more precision is appropriate here)? As far as I can tell, "the potential to change" generally is simply a way to describe certain attributes of a thing, and you haven't demonstrated that that isn't all that's going on here. When someone says "this lamp has the potential to change color", there isn't a thing in addition to the lamp that we call "the potential to change color", neither a physical nor a non-physical one, it's simply a way of expressing the fact that it has colored light filters built in, or uses different-colored LEDs, and that there are controls or something to influence in which proportions those are used to produce light. If you think there is something like "the essence of the potential to change color" that has some sort of existence beyond what is described by the mechanism of the lamp, that would be for you to demonstrate. > "If you cared to attain maximum wealth, and you believed that maximum wealth could be attained through shooting yourself in the head, then shooting yourself in the head would be the way to go"--was an assertion that a person ought to follow their beliefs. So, you think they ought to follow their belief even though they demonstrably (I think you would agree?) will achieve the exact opposite of their stated goal by doing so?

sonusario 7y ago
> All of those say pretty much the same, in so far as they are applicable to the situation? Do you think they mean the same thing as your definition? If so why, otherwise where did you get your definition of 'incompatible with science' from? > ... it is non-scientific methods that are (potentially) incompatible with [science]. Is this to say that non-scientific methods are not necessarily incompatible with science? > Using science. How is science demonstrated to be reasonably reliable for determining the truth of a claim? Is that to say that science can demonstrate the reliability of a methodology that is used to determine the truth of non-scientific claims? > Because science is concerned with reality, and determining what is true about reality, and formal claims don't say anything about reality. Define reality. How do you know that formal claims don't say anything about reality? Is science the only method that can determine what is true about reality? > Yes, obviously? Then, how do you know that mathematical claims are not about reality when it may simply be the case that the rules that derive them have not been demonstrated to be reasonably reliable for determining the real truth of such a claim? > As far as this discussion is concerned, it's the idea that methods you use to justify claims about reality should be demonstrably reliable. What about this definition determines that not being testable is "about as incompatible with science as you can get"? Why define 'science' this way over utilizing some form of the top definitions of 'science' resulting from a quick google search (e.g. "the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment", "such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world", "systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation", "is the pursuit and application of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence")? === > Distances (in spaces) and cardinality (of sets). What is distance? What are spaces? What is cardinality? What are sets? > If we can what? Distinguish the word 'mathematics' from the concept of mathematics? Not the word but mathematics itself. Just like you can distinguish a rock from the concept of a rock. > No ... Then why state "... (by mathematicians)" rather than "(by some mathematicians)" (though that still wouldn't seem to help assert your case)? It seams like your using the intent of mathematicians to assert that axioms are not claims about reality when you don't know the intent of all mathematicians. Do you have a more solid way to stake your claim? > Which might be because they are not all talking exclusively about mathematics? Then from where are you drawing your definition? > But really, I don't get what the point of all this even is. ... I have pointed out that those categories can be distinguished, and that showing something for one of those categories does not demonstrate truth for the other categories. We have singled out formal truths from real truths to highlight your position that distinguishes them. I have yet to agree that formal truths are not real truths because I don't think that you have established that as fact. > Well, yes and no. So you don't know whether your defining 'axiom' however you want and whether the statement "axioms are not claims about reality" simply conforms with your definition? > No, in that I used the definition that is commonly accepted... What is, and from where are you drawing, your definition of axiom? > No. It is not obvious that there is such a thing as "given the Peano axioms", absent humans (or possibly more generalized evaluators). So, it is not obvious to you that '1 < 2' does or does not have a referent, because the Peano axioms that '1 < 2' is derived from may or may not be a purely artificial construct of humans (or possibly more generalized evaluators)? > That depends on the definition of "exists". What is your definition? > As far as the most commonly used definition is concerned, the non-physical does not exist, because existence by definition implies physicality "You constantly want to make this assumption, but that assumption really is just the assumption of the [non-]existence of the immaterial, and as such it's not a useful basis for demonstrating the [non-]existence of the immaterial, because every false claim could be assumed to be true in order to demonstrate that it is true, and thus assuming a claim in order to demonstrate that it is true is not a reliable method for determining the truth of a claim. > because existence by definition implies physicality (when a normal person says "there exists no grocery store in this street", they are not excluding the possibility that a non-physical grocery store exists in the street) How do you know 'existence' is implying physicality in this scenario over 'grocery store' implying physicality? === > ... Or what? Read 'can be'. > Hu?! I mean, yeah, we can observe changes in state, I guess, but then we also can observe changes in state that we don't have explanations for, can't we? So ... no? Not having an explanation now doesn't mean that there can't be one. Science has yet to fail in giving us further explanations for things. So, unless you want to deny the effectiveness of science you have no case. > Well ... maybe? It smells like a setup for equivocation ... If a wall was painted completely blue and then someone added a spec of orange somewhere, then wall as a whole would not be blue. > Well ... yeah? The point being? Has anyone made the claim that reality is not entirely intelligible? You asked "Couldn't there be mechanisms by which something changes state that can not be determined by science?". My point is "No" for the aforementioned reasons. > Could you explain then what there is to this potential to change the state of the electric field beyond what is described by the theory of the electron and other charged particles (I used only "electron" before for simplicity, but I guess some more precision is appropriate here)? There is nothing to the "potential to change the state of the electric field" that goes beyond what is described by the theory of the electron and other charged particles. The theory incorporates notions of change. Stating that something can change is to state that the potential for that thing to change exists. So, the "potential to change the state of the electric field" doesn't go beyond the theory. > As far as I can tell, "the potential to change" generally is simply a way to describe certain attributes of a thing, and you haven't demonstrated that that isn't all that's going on here. This sounds like a claim against my definition. If that's what it is, then you'll need to substantiate that your definition is something I need to deny, but... You yourself rightly noted to me that it doesn't make sense to ask if a definition is true. Are you now saying that I need to argue against a definition, one that, as far as I can tell, you made up? Or perhaps you are saying that your definition is the generally accepted one, and you are asking me to argue that your definition isn't the generally accepted one. In which case I'd ask you to substantiate your claim that your definition is the generally accepted one? > When someone says "this lamp has the potential to change color", there isn't a thing in addition to the lamp that we call "the potential to change color", neither a physical nor a non-physical one Soooo, you don't think a lamp can change color? > it's simply a way of expressing the fact that it has colored light filters built in, or uses different-colored LEDs, and that there are controls or something to influence in which proportions those are used to produce light. And not to express that a lamp can change color...? > If you think there is something like "the essence of the potential to change color" that has some sort of existence beyond what is described by the mechanism of the lamp, that would be for you to demonstrate. Again, like with the electric field, "the essence of the potential to change color" does not exist beyond what is described by the mechanism of the lamb because the mechanism of the lamp is in part described by change. To be able to change color is "the essence of the potential to change color", which of course exists, otherwise you'd be saying something tantamount to "lamps can't change color". That "non-physical potential(s) of particular physical things exists" is the conclusion to my 'potential' argument. You have yet to substantiate any objection against it. === > So, you think they ought to follow their belief even though they demonstrably (I think you would agree?) will achieve the exact opposite of their stated goal by doing so? Long story short: It is immoral to do what you think is immoral even if it is moral, so you'll be better off doing what you think is moral even if it is immoral. That being said we are obligated to correct our neighbors' incorrect moral beliefs and to be open to being corrected. Looking back, all of my statements regarding the scenarios were ambiguous to my intent because they were all meant to be tied to morality but I didn't explicitly state it as such. My bad. > Well, yeah ... so there is no reason to care about morality under your definition, then? Does a person not substantiating a claim mean that the claim is not true? Out of curiosity, what would you say is a reason to care about science?
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
  [part 1 ... yeah, seems I don't manage to stay under the limit] Note: We seem to be getting side-tracked with tons of irrelevant details. Instead of answering all your questions, I will try try reformulating my position on some things in the hopes of maybe clearing up some of the confusion. > Do you think they mean the same thing as your definition? If so why, otherwise where did you get your definition of 'incompatible with science' from? What does any of this matter? It is really simple: I, just as scientists generally, use the word "science" to mean "the collection of methods that are demonstrably reliable for determining facts about reality". Religion uses methods that are not demonstrably reliable for determining (supposed) facts about reality. So, religion will make (real) truth claims and will claim that those are reliable, where science says that those claims are unreliable, which means that the statements are in conflict. That is the fact of the matter. If you want to argue about whether there are some people who hold positions as scientists who happen to use a different definition, or whether this is true, ultimate incompatibility when it is possible for both to exist in the same universe ... really, I am just not interested, because none of that changes anything about this pretty easy to understand fact. What I am interested in are substantial arguments that show that in fact the methods used by religions to make (real) truth claims are comparable in reliability to scientific methods. > How is science demonstrated to be reasonably reliable for determining the truth of a claim? By testing whether the predictions made by whatever method is suggested as part of scientific methodology do come true with a probability higher than chance, preferably much higher than chance. > How do you know that formal claims don't say anything about reality? How do you know that claims about football don't say anything about the car industry? First and foremost, that is a nonsensical question. When someone makes a claim that they intend to say something about football, then that is what their claim is about, by the definition of what it means to make a claim. You are making it way more complicated than necessary when you try to then argue about whether the statement could somehow also be interpreted as being about the car industry. Maybe it can, but that doesn't change anything about the fact that whoever made the claim was not trying to convey anything about the car industry. The speaker didn't mean what they didn't mean, no matter how much you argue about the labels used to describe the situation and whether the statement could be reinterpreted to mean something else than what was meant by the speaker. The fact that the same sequence of words can be used to describe distinct facts about reality does not mean that when you show that one of those facts is true, all other facts that could be described using the same words are also true, so it is a completely futile exercise to keep arguing about whether some word or some statement could also mean something else. > Then, how do you know that mathematical claims are not about reality when it may simply be the case that the rules that derive them have not been demonstrated to be reasonably reliable for determining the real truth of such a claim? Because there is nothing in the claim that even refers to reality, just as there is nothing in the claim about football that refers to the car industry. This has absolutely nothing to do with whether some method is reliable--there is simply no method at all, it's all just a category error. You might as well be asking how I know that claims about English grammar are not about reality when it may simply be the case that the rules to derive English sentences have not been demonstrated to be reasonably reliable for determining the real truth of such a claim. When someone says "'The tree jumps over the moon.' is a grammatically correct English sentence", it is nothing more than a category error to ask what that statement says about reality. It simply doesn't. It is, very obviously, talking about the formal system also known as the English language, and whether the sentence 'The tree jumps over the moon.' can be derived from the "axioms" of the English language. Also, it is completely irrelevant whether someone somewhere maybe does make statements that are intended to say something about both English grammar and medicine. The fact that that might somehow be possible still does not change that in general, when someone talks about English grammar, they are not talking about medicine. And most importantly for this conversation: When I am telling you that I am explicitly not talking about medicine, but only about English grammar, it is just completely besides the point to keep going on about how someone maybe could also mean to say something about medicine. > What is distance? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_(mathematics)#Definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_(mathematics)#Definitio... > What are spaces? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_space#Definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_space#Definition > What is cardinality? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinality > What are sets? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiomatic_set_theory#Axiomatic_set_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiomatic_set_theory#Axiomatic... The point is: A bunch of axioms and what results from them. > Not the word but mathematics itself. Just like you can distinguish a rock from the concept of a rock. So, what would you point to for mathematics if you wanted to point to mathematics while avoiding pointing to the concept of mathematics? I don't see what could possibly be meant by that, so if you want to make the claim that there is something there, it's up to you to demonstrate that there is. > Then why state "... (by mathematicians)" rather than "(by some mathematicians)" For the same reason that you don't say "The earth is considered to be an oblate spheroid (by most physicists)", and the fact that you are asking this makes me wonder how much you are actually trying to understand, rather than just trying to avoid justifying your own position. It is just completely normal and not the slightest bit of a problem that you generalize when talking about groups of people, when it is just completely irrelevant whether some small minority of that group deviates from what otherwise defines that group. > We have singled out formal truths from real truths to highlight your position that distinguishes them. I have yet to agree that formal truths are not real truths because I don't think that you have established that as fact. There is no fact to establish here. I am simply telling you about the distinction that I am making (as are many other people). And it doesn't even matter whether formal truths are also real truths. What matter is that you can distinguish formal truths from not-formal truths. > So, it is not obvious to you that '1 < 2' does or does not have a referent, because the Peano axioms that '1 < 2' is derived from may or may not be a purely artificial construct of humans (or possibly more generalized evaluators)? I guess so? I mean, I would say it's pretty obvious that the way we know them they are an artificial construct of humans (like, the axioms were formulated by humans). If you think there is more to it than that, that would be for you to demonstrate. > Not having an explanation now doesn't mean that there can't be one. You are shifting the burden of proof, again. It is really getting annoying. You implicitly claimed that there would be explanations for all things we have no explanations for yet. I rejected that claim. When I reject your claim that there will be explanations, I am not making any claim, and in particular I am not making the claim that there will be things that will be unexplained forever, so stop turning my asking for your justification around into "but some other claim I have made up is unjustified as well!". If you make the claim that there will be explanations for everything we can observe, then it is up to you to substantiate that claim. You are not justified in making that claim just because I have not demonstrated that something will stay unexplained forever--a claim that I never made, and that is in no way implied in my rejection of your claim. If there is a question to which we don't know the answer, your unsubstantiated answer does not win by default until someone disproves it. If we don't know the answer, we don't know the answer, and it's up to you to demonstrate that you do know the answer if you think that you do. > Science has yet to fail in giving us further explanations for things. So, unless you want to deny the effectiveness of science you have no case. Science constantly fails to give us answers? Like, exactly everything we don't know, which is, like, a lot? The effectiveness of science is very obviously limited, given how much we would want to know, but don't. That doesn't mean it's ineffective, it just as obviously is not, but there is no contradiction between recognizing that it is limited, and possibly fundamentally so (in the sense that some things might stay unexplained forever), and recognizing that it is effective. > If a wall was painted completely blue and then someone added a spec of orange somewhere, then wall as a whole would not be blue. Yeah, sure. The problem is when you then build an argument on that and then use that argument to conclude something about almost completely blue walls.

sonusario 7y ago
> yeah, seems I don't manage to stay under the limit ... We seem to be getting side-tracked with tons of irrelevant details. To skim things down, let's get more formal. === Could you please state your argument, regarding things being testable as they relate to science, in the form of a syllogism that ends with the conclusion "Therefore if X is a claim about reality and X is not testable, then X is not compatible with science" to establish that a claim about reality not being testable is "about as incompatible with science as you can get"? A preemptive question to the syllogism that you may give (to possibly help its formulation): Are all aspects of reality testable by science? Much of our discussion can be omitted as it ties back to our main contention which is "what constitutes compatibility with science". If there is a need to resume something previously discussed it will likely resurface from here. I apologize if I am making you restate things, I am making my best attempt to understand your position (you have no idea how nice it would be for me to ditch my Catholic faith if it could be shown that it wasn't true), hopefully that's been evident by the amount of time I've left between some responses. Again I've included things that interest me which don't necessarily contribute to our "compatibility with science" dispute. === > By testing whether the predictions made by whatever method is suggested as part of scientific methodology do come true with a probability higher than chance, preferably much higher than chance. Testing by a method other than science? How do you know that method is reliable? === Could you please provide a syllogism that ends with the conclusion "Therefore formal claims are not about reality" to establish that mathematical/grammatical claims are not about reality? === > So, what would you point to for mathematics if you wanted to point to mathematics while avoiding pointing to the concept of mathematics? I don't see what could possibly be meant by that, so if you want to make the claim that there is something there, it's up to you to demonstrate that there is. That's what I'm asking, I'm not claiming one way or the other. If you know what it points to please let me know, and how you know. If you don't know, then you can't rule out the non-physical without knowing whether it points to something physical or not. > It is just completely normal and not the slightest bit of a problem that you generalize when talking about groups of people, when it is just completely irrelevant whether some small minority of that group deviates from what otherwise defines that group. Except your saying that it all depends upon intent and you'd need to take into account intents that don't agree if that is the case. But now you've stated that it depends upon the intent of the majority. If the majority of mathematicians say that they are making claims about reality, then you'd likely say (correct me if I am wrong) that "anyone can obviously redefine words however they want but that doesn't make the claims they are making about reality" even though you've made it about the majority's intent. You need to establish that axiomatic claims can't be about reality in some way besides intent. The syllogism that I've asked you to provide above would do that. > I guess so? I mean, I would say it's pretty obvious that the way we know them they are an artificial construct of humans (like, the axioms were formulated by humans). If you think there is more to it than that, that would be for you to demonstrate. My point is that you don't know whether '1 < 2' has a referent or not. If you know that mathematical claims are not about reality, then you would know that '1 < 2' has no referent. If you don't know that '1 < 2' has no referent, then you don't know that mathematical claims are not about reality. I don't need to establish "'1 < 2' has a referent" to establish that you don't know whether mathematical claims are about reality. === > You implicitly claimed that there would be explanations for all things we have no explanations for yet. I explicitly stated it. Even if you said science is limited, as you have done, you'd still have no case because the position that "there are not explanations for some things" is self-defeating, as I have already stated. > You have specified no criterion by which we could distinguish whether that potential is physical or not. Unless your criterion assumes that everything that exists is physical, I don't see why I couldn't use your criterion. === > "It is immoral to do [something] even if it is moral [...]". How is it not blatantly obvious to you that that is just a nonsense statement due to a couldn't-be-more-obvious self-contradiction? If you think there is a contradiction, please state it as a syllogism to highlight it. I'll rephrase to make my statement less ambiguous: It is immoral to do X if you think X is immoral even if X is moral, so you'll be better off doing any X you think is moral even if X is immoral. > You are again shifting the burden of proof. Seriously, stop it, it's annoying! No one claimed that your claim wasn't true. ... Your question seemed snarky, so I gave it the snarky response I thought it deserved. I apologize if it was a genuine question, and if so my answer would be "No there is a reason, but not one I care to defend at the moment". I thought I could give part of a reason, even if not fully formed, because I didn't want to be a bad host of the questions that lead to this side conversation. That being said, I have no interest in substantiating my claims regarding morality if you don't think that what I am saying could be compatible with science even in principle. I don't mind getting deeper into it, but substantiating, not worth the effort at the moment. === > If you care about being able to better achieve your goals (as you probably do, because that's a thing humans almost universally do), you should care about using the most reliable methodology known so far that enables that, up to the point where we possibly find a demonstrably more reliable methodology. If I were to supplant "morality", as I have defined it, for "science", and repeated what you said as a reason to care about morality, what objections might you have to the given reason?
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
  [part 1, of course!] > Could you please state your argument, regarding things being testable as they relate to science, in the form of a syllogism that ends with the conclusion [...] I might try to, but I suspect the problem is more the nailing down of definitions than the logical structure of the argument, and I suspect in particular that there might be some misunderstanding about ... > A preemptive question to the syllogism that you may give (to possibly help its formulation): Are all aspects of reality testable by science? ... what "testability" means in the context of the philosophy of science, as this question doesn't really make all that much sense in that context. First of all, there is no such thing as "testable by science". Science is not a method of testing things. At most, you could maybe say that science is the collection of all of the reliable methods of testing things known so far. I'll go on somewhat of a tangent, but I think it might be helpful: You do maybe know the saying "There is no such thing as alternative medicine, just medicine that works, and medicine that doesn't"? What is meant by that is that medicine is not a fixed set of methods, but rather the collection of all of the methods that have been demonstrated to be effective so far. But the important bit is the "so far": It's very much possible that some other methods are effective as well, even some of those that are suggested as "alternative medicine". But the point is that those methods are not excluded from medicine on the grounds of some dogma or anything like that, but rather simply because they have not been demonstrated to be effective--and as soon as their efficacy is demonstrated, they will simply become part of medicine. So, "alternative medicine" only consists of methods of which the efficacy is unknown, or which are known to be ineffective, because anything that previously was in that category, and for which efficacy now has been demonstrated, becomes "normal" medicine. Science is the same way. So, in particular, science does not have any dogma against religious ideas or methods just because they are religious ideas or methods. There is no doctrine that says that science is somehow not allowed to come to the conclusion that god exists, say. Nor does science have any doctrine against conclusions about the supernatural or the non-physical ... or anything, really. The demand is just that you can show that whatever methods you use to come to a conclusion are (reasonably) reliable. The point is: When science demands testability, it doesn't mean "testable using the methods prescribed by science", it just means testable in any way at all--if you need to use a new method for the test, that is perfectly fine, if you can demonstrate that it works. Really, it's not just that any effective method of testing is fine, but rather, any new method demonstrated to be effective would simply start being considered to be part of science. The defining goal of science is to produce reliable predictions, and any method that helps with that is acceptable. If you could demonstrate that prayer can be used to make reliable predictions (including to reliably influence outcomes, in which case the prediction would be that the prayer produces that particular outcome), then prayer would be accepted as a scientific method. Also, I think it is important to note what specificially testability means in the context of the philosophy of science: Testability is the property of a claim that you know experiments that could be done, and if those experiments gave a result different than predicted by your claim, you would conclude that your claim is false. The point of demanding testability is not to establish that something is true (apparently something that many people think), nor to establish that it is false. The point of testability is to weed out those claims that are indistinguishable from stuff that someone just made up. That is not because what someone just made up is necessarily false, but because almost all claims that someone could potentially make up are false, and thus, if you have no way to distinguish a given claim from one that was just made up, the probability that it is false is extremely high. Importantly, demanding testability is not a dogmatic demand: There is a reason for it, namely that without it you are likely to accept lots of false claims. So, are all aspects of reality testable by science? Well, for one, any aspects that are testable, by whichever method, are, by definition, testable by science, for any demonstrably reliable test you were to use would become part of science. Which leaves the question: Are all aspects of reality testable? I don't know, possibly not. But the time to believe any claims about those aspects that are not testable is when they become testable, and not before, for the reason I explained above: They are indistinguishable from stuff someone just made up. > I am making my best attempt to understand your position (you have no idea how nice it would be for me to ditch my Catholic faith if it could be shown that it wasn't true), Haha, that statement actually indeed makes it very believable that you do, for a reason that you most likely didn't even notice. Let me explain: What you are doing here is shifting the burden of proof, again--except: You are shifting it to yourself, where it doesn't belong. You are believing something, it seems, because it hasn't been disproven to you. As a general rule, that's a bad idea, and with religions in particular, it will essentially guarantee that you won't find the way out. Mind you that I am not saying that you necessarily should find the way out, because your particular religion could in principle be true, after all. But what should give you pause is that this is true of all religions--and they can impossibly all be true, because they make contradicting claims. All religions have at their core untestable claims, that is, claims which are impossible to contradict with any test. The claims themselves are constructed in such a way that it is impossible to disprove them, even if they are in fact false. So, no matter whether they are true or false, you won't ever find a way to disprove them. So, if you are trying to disprove the claims of your religion, you might as well give up, you won't, ever, at least for the central claims, and no matter what your religion is. What I would suggest instead is shifting the burden of proof to those making the claim, and to disbelieve claims until they have been demonstrated to be most likely true, not believe claims until they have been demonstrated to be most likely false--which most likely is something that you do practice for most (all?) other claims anyway (like, if someone is trying to sell you something, you won't just take their word for it that theirs is the best product until you have disproved that claim, but rather you will first investigate alternatives before you come to a conclusion about which product is likely to be the best). There should be reasons to believe, not no reasons to not believe. Now, given the effects of religious indoctrination, especially when coupled with (also untestable) threats for disbelief, that's potentially easier said than done, and probably not something that you'll just switch frome one day to the next, but given what you wrote, I guess it's a perspective worth thinking about. If you are interested, I guess I could also dump a bunch of resources on you that might be helpful in further exploring your reasons for your religious beliefs, just let me know and I'll dig up some URLs ... > Testing by a method other than science? How do you know that method is reliable? No, by testing with an established scientific methodology. You simply use methods that you do already know are reliable to test other methods whether they are reliable. (And mind you that "reliable" here does not mean "give results with 100% certainty".) > Could you please provide a syllogism that ends with the conclusion "Therefore formal claims are not about reality" to establish that mathematical/grammatical claims are not about reality? Could you provide a syllogism that ends with the conclusion "Therefore claims about John are not about Jack"? > That's what I'm asking, I'm not claiming one way or the other. If you know what it points to please let me know, and how you know. If you don't know, then you can't rule out the non-physical without knowing whether it points to something physical or not. I am not ruling out the non-physical, if only because the term is ill-defined. You made claims about the existence of the non-physical, and you have yet to demonstrate that that's a thing, without constantly shifting the burden of proof to me. "Mathematics" clearly is used to refer to stuff that has at least physical representation, so I'll agree that mathematics has at least those physical aspects (like, books, brains, lectures, what have you). If you think there is more to it, then that's for you to demonstrate, not for me to disprove. > But now you've stated that it depends upon the intent of the majority. No, I have done that before, because that is how language is used. There is no need to state so explicitly. "Physicists believe earth is an oblate spheroid" does not mean "there are no physicists who don't believe earth is an oblate spheroid". That sentence simply is not the English translation of "forall <physicists>: <physicist> believes that earth is an oblate spheroid". It is common usage in English to use generalized statements with the implied understanding that they do not apply to all individuals, so you are simply deviating from standard English if that is how you choose to interpret the sentence.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago

[part 2] > This sounds like a claim against my definition. No, I am asking you to substantiate that there is more to it than a definition, because a definition doesn't make reality. Namely, defining that 'existence' covers the application of a label to a set of attributes of another thing does not justify treating it as existing in the sense of being an entity onto itself, which is what this was originally about. I don't care whether you label that as existence, if I understand that that is what you mean. I care about the fallacious equivocation that you are attempting when you then go on to claim that anything that can be said to exist under that definition also has the properties that would be required under a different definition. > That "non-physical potential(s) of particular physical things exists" is the conclusion to my 'potential' argument. You have yet to substantiate any objection against it. There is nothing to substantiate on my part. You have in no way substantiated the "non-physical" part. You have specified no criterion by which we could distinguish whether that potential is physical or not. All sort-of-criteria you have mentioned were very vague for one, and would classify all kinds of things generally considered to be physical by physicists as non-physical. At best, any distinctions you have tried were artefacts of the language that you use to describe the situation, rather than of the situation itself. You call one thing a "potential", while you call the other thing a "mechanism", and then try to build a distinction on that. But you seem to never check whether you couldn't just as well look at the potential as a mechanism and at the mechanism as a potential. The fact that you can use two different words to describe the same situation does not make for a substantial difference in the facts of the matter. > Long story short: It is immoral to do what you think is immoral even if it is moral, so you'll be better off doing what you think is moral even if it is immoral. Wut? Seriously, I have problems taking you seriously on this. How far do you have to twist concepts in your head for that statement to make any sense at all? "It is immoral to do [something] even if it is moral [...]". How is it not blatantly obvious to you that that is just a nonsense statement due to a couldn't-be-more-obvious self-contradiction? > Does a person not substantiating a claim mean that the claim is not true? You are again shifting the burden of proof. Seriously, stop it, it's annoying! Noone claimed that your claim wasn't true. But the mere fact that some claim has not been demonstrated to be false yet is not a good reason to care about the claim, because the vast majority of claims that have not been demonstrated to be true or been demonstrated to be false yet are in fact false, statistically speaking, so caring about every claim that hasn't been demonstrated to be false yet (other than possibly for the purposes of determining the truth of the claim) would have an abysmal success rate. > Out of curiosity, what would you say is a reason to care about science? The fact that it is the collection of methodology (using a rather broad definition of science, which is what I think you should care about) that produces demonstrably the by far most reliable predictions of reality that thus allow us to control reality better (because we can use that predictive power to act in a way that results in outcomes closer to our goals, from political decisions to medical interventions or the engineering of technical solutions). If you care about being able to better achieve your goals (as you probably do, because that's a thing humans almost universally do), you should care about using the most reliable methodology known so far that enables that, up to the point where we possibly find a demonstrably more reliable methodology.

sonusario 7y ago
> [part 1, of course!] It is what it is I guess. > I suspect the problem is more the nailing down of definitions than the logical structure of the argument Possibly, but where we are missing each other on definitions would likely be more noticeable in a syllogism. > The point of testability is to weed out those claims that are indistinguishable from stuff that someone just made up. Is it possible that a testable claim could imply another claim that is not testable? In other words, could you have an implicit reason for believing that something is true rather than an explicit one? > I don't know, possibly not. So, if it is possible that some aspects of reality are not testable, then it is possible that a claim about such an aspect of reality is not compatible with science? === > You are believing something, it seems, because it hasn't been disproven to you. That is not the case. I think there is great evidence. If it is false, then it is likely that my willingness to accept things is too generous, but I'll make any effort I can to get past that if that is indeed the position I find myself in. > So, no matter whether they are true or false, you won't ever find a way to disprove them. So, might you be attempting to say that non-testable claims are incompatible with doing science, rather than non-testable claims being incompatible with science itself? > If you are interested... I am. === > No, by testing with an established scientific methodology. You simply use methods that you do already know are reliable to test other methods whether they are reliable. So, is there a chain of scientific methods that establish further scientific methods with no beginning, or is there some first self-evident method, that can't be tested for reliability without being circular? === > That's like asking "can claims about John be about Jack?" So are you saying "you can't make a claim about John be about Jack, because John is not Jack", and to parallel "you can't make a claim about math be about reality because math is not reality"? What if John was Jack's middle finger, how could a claim about John not be about Jack? >>>> So, it is not obvious to you that '1 < 2' does or does not have a referent, because the Peano axioms that '1 < 2' is derived from may or may not be a purely artificial construct of humans (or possibly more generalized evaluators)? >>> I guess so? ... >> My point is... If you don't know that '1 < 2' has no referent, then you don't know that mathematical claims are not about reality. I don't need to establish "'1 < 2' has a referent" to establish that you don't know whether mathematical claims are about reality. > Let me clarify: ... '1 < 2' has no referent absent the axioms defined by mathematicians Given the Peano axioms, and their evaluations and derivations by humans, does '1 < 2' have a referent? === > But I have never made that claim, so what is the point of bringing it up? You objected to my claim that "everything has an explanation" thinking I had not substantiated it. I get that you're not making the opposing claim, but in order to substantiate my claim I showed that the opposing claim can't be true. Even if your not making the opposing claim, your objection has no case because the opposing claim can't be true. If "not everything has an explanation" can't be true then "everything has an explanation" must be true. So you can choose to reject my claim, but that is a choice to reject a substantiated claim. If you don't think I have substantiated it, let me know why. > I don't have a criterion? I don't think there is any distinction to be made, and if you think that there is, it's up to you to demonstrate some way to make the distinction. You don't have a definition for physical? You don't think there is a distinction, or do you lack reason to think there is a distinction? For the criterion that I did give what was deficient? (you said that I didn't but I did: to be physical is to be able to have measurable effects or to be measurably affected) === > For any action X, "being moral" is semantically equivalent to "being moral to do", and "immoral" is the negation of "moral". Therefore, your statement says that there exists an action that is moral and not moral at the same time. My statements never fluctuate the moral value of X. Another rephrase: It is immoral to do (A: X while thinking X is immoral) even if (B: X is moral). You'll be better off doing (C: any X while thinking X is moral) even if (D: X is immoral). Regarding A and B: A is immoral, even though B says X of A might be moral. It is not doing X that is immoral, it is doing A. Regarding C & D: The entirety of C is moral, even though D says X of C might be immoral. It is not X that is moral, it is C. > The primary problem is not what you are saying, the primary problem is the method you use to justify it. What is my method, and what is problematic with it? > That you have in no way demonstrated that your version of morality does produce any of the results promised, it's just an empty assertion. If, for my demonstration, I were to refer to the lives of the saints, they being better at achieving their goals of happiness than anyone else whom does not employ their methods by far, how might you object then?
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
  [part 1 ... ;-)] > Possibly, but where we are missing each other on definitions would likely be more noticeable in a syllogism. Well, maybe, but part of the problem is that I don't really know yet what assumptions to build on that you would share. There are tons of ways to demonstrate incompatibility between religion and science, depending on which assumptions (definitions, in particular) you build on. > Is it possible that a testable claim could imply another claim that is not testable? Yes. Example: The earth being flat implies that invisible unicorns exist. "the earth is flat" is testable, "invisible unicorns exist" is not (arguably), and the implication is true (ex falso quodlibet). > In other words, could you have an implicit reason for believing that something is true rather than an explicit one? For one, testability is not a reason to believe a claim, as can be seen from the claim above that the earth is flat, which is testable, but demonstrably false. Lack of testability is a reason to not believe (because it's indistinguishable from claims that were just made up), testability is not a reason to believe (because the test might very well disprove the claim). But the bigger problem with that question seems to be that it assumes some sort of essentialist testability. If we turn the implication around, we get a correct statement: If some claim B implies a claim A, and A is testable, then that is reason to not disbelieve B for lack of testability. But it makes no sense under any circumstances to label B as "untestable": Disproving A implies disproving B, and thus if you have some method for testing A, that method is also a test of B, and thus B is testable. If a test could disprove your claim, then that is what it means for the claim to be testable, the amount of indirection between the claim and the test is irrelevant. > So, if it is possible that some aspects of reality are not testable, then it is possible that a claim about such an aspect of reality is not compatible with science? Yes. Making claims that are indistinguishable from stuff that's just made up is not compatible with science, because science is about making claims that are as reliable as possible, and claims that are indistuinguishable from stuff that's just made up is notoriously unreliable. Or another way to put it: Making claims about the untestable implies the claim that you are able to detect the undetectable, which is self-contradicting. Either you can detect something, then you can use that to construct a test, or you can't, then you have no basis for claiming that you can. > That is not the case. I think there is great evidence. If it is false, then it is likely that my willingness to accept things is too generous, but I'll make any effort I can to get past that if that is indeed the position I find myself in. Well, granted, that is a likely alternative! (Though I would say the problem is not necessarily that the evidence is false, but that it is insufficient ... or rather, that it should be. I mean, unless you really do happen to have the evidence that everyone has been waiting for ... ;-) Also, good luck with that! :-) > So, might you be attempting to say that non-testable claims are incompatible with doing science, rather than non-testable claims being incompatible with science itself? I don't understand what the distinction is that you are making here. > I am. Well, let's see ... http://www.atheist-experience.com/ http://www.atheist-experience.com/ Seems like a good starting point overall: Various hosts with different perspectives and styles, focus on talking to theists, so chances are they will address (or have addressed) what you are interested in, and obviously you could also try calling yourself if you feel like it, plus they regularly have guests who might have their own sites or youtube channels or whatever, so also a good way to discover more resources. You might also want to have a look at the tons of other programs they (the atheist community of Austin) have started to produce recently ... really, just dig around a bit and see whether anything fits your taste. https://www.youtube.com/user/SansDeity https://www.youtube.com/user/SansDeity One of the hosts of the above, addressing specific topics more in depth. https://www.youtube.com/user/AntiCitizenX https://www.youtube.com/user/AntiCitizenX https://casualentropy.blogspot.com/ https://casualentropy.blogspot.com/ Not necessarily very diplomatic, but they do dive into the more philosophical questions, so might be worth a read/listen. https://www.youtube.com/user/magnabosco210 https://www.youtube.com/user/magnabosco210 One guy (not the only one by far, you might also want to look for others) practicing street epistemology, with many talks addressing questions of religious beliefs. https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org/resources https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org/resources Not sure whether it's too relevant for you, but then, they have a collection of quite a wide range of different resources, so who knows, digging around there might turn up something interesting ... If you want to read a book or two, the classics (almost) from Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, and Dennett probably aren't the worst idea, Dennett in particular if you want to get more into the philosophy side of things. Other than that, I guess I would rather start from the above and look out for recommendations from there. > So, is there a chain of scientific methods that establish further scientific methods with no beginning, or is there some first self-evident method, that can't be tested for reliability without being circular? Neither, really, though more the latter than the former. You could say that the basis that everything else builds on is the assumption that our senses are somewhat reliable, i.e., that if an overwhelming majority of people agree about some observation, the observation is probably a reasonably accurate description of something that actually happened. And mind you that not much reliability is necessary in order to bootstrap this, because you can largely test that, too. But when you think about it, you'll notice that that assumption isn't actually necessary if you are careful with formulating your goal. Namely, if your goal is to have as accurate a model of reality as possible, then that still holds if you have absolutely no way to make any reliable determination about reality: If you have no way to make any reliable determination about reality, then, by definition, no method will give you a better result than pure randomness, and thus every method is optimal (and pessimal at the same time). And as soon as there is even a little bit of structure to reality that you could figure out, building on your senses is going to outperform ignoring your senses. > So are you saying "you can't make a claim about John be about Jack, because John is not Jack", and to parallel "you can't make a claim about math be about reality because math is not reality"? More precisely, because a statement about math is not a statement about reality, other than that math is part of (human) reality. > What if John was Jack's middle finger, how could a claim about John not be about Jack? That's just a pointless question. And that is not because it is categorically wrong, but because it brings no insight. There is not a single statement that you couldn't object to with "but what if some words had completely different meanings than what the speaker presumably intended, based on common usage?" "'The earth is round' is true!"--"But what if by 'true' they meant false, or by 'earth' they meant a banana, or by 'round' they meant flat?" The answer is simply: They didn't. > Given the Peano axioms, and their evaluations and derivations by humans, does '1 < 2' have a referent? Yes, those axioms, evaluations and derivations (well, particular aspects of them). Just the same way that 'Game of Thrones' has a referent, given the series, and characters of that series have a referent, given the series. None of that implies some essence that exists absent those human artefacts. > You objected to my claim that "everything has an explanation" thinking I had not substantiated it. I get that you're not making the opposing claim, but in order to substantiate my claim I showed that the opposing claim can't be true. No, you haven't. At best, you have shown that holding that position is not justified (arguably, you haven't done that either, but it doesn't really matter for this). But lack of justification for one position does not imply that the position is false, nor that there is justification for the opposing position. It simply means that there is no good reason to believe that one position. If neither a given position nor the opposing position is justified, then we simply don't know which of the positions is correct. > Even if your not making the opposing claim, your objection has no case because the opposing claim can't be true. If "not everything has an explanation" can't be true then "everything has an explanation" must be true. So you can choose to reject my claim, but that is a choice to reject a substantiated claim. If you don't think I have substantiated it, let me know why. Well, see above. You have to show that it is impossible for something to be unexplainable, not just that we don't know whether something is unexplainable.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago

[part 2] > You need to establish that axiomatic claims can't be about reality in some way besides intent. The syllogism that I've asked you to provide above would do that. You are simply missing the point. It's not a question of if it "can be about reality". That's like asking "can claims about John be about Jack?" No, they can't. And that's not for some deep reason that you seem to be looking for that somehow magically prevents claims about John from being about Jack. It's the frickin obvious fact that when I say "John has brown hair", I am not talking about Jack. That's all there is to it, and you are just obfuscating this trivial fact by trying to reinterpret what I might mean by "John", and whether I maybe am using "John" to refer to an invisible unicorn. I don't mean any of that, I simply mean John, and that is why I said "John". Your ability to be creative in your interpretation does not change what I mean by a statement. > My point is that you don't know whether '1 < 2' has a referent or not. If you know that mathematical claims are not about reality, then you would know that '1 < 2' has no referent. If you don't know that '1 < 2' has no referent, then you don't know that mathematical claims are not about reality. I don't need to establish "'1 < 2' has a referent" to establish that you don't know whether mathematical claims are about reality. Let me clarify: Under the definitions used by mathematicians, '1 < 2' has no referent absent the axioms defined by mathematicians, that is easy to know from the definitions used by mathematicians. If you want to propose different definitions that possibly are structurally compatible with the ones used by mathematicians, feel free to do so, but if those imply that '1 < 2' has a referent absent axioms/evaluators/..., that would be up to you to demonstrate. > I explicitly stated it. Even if you said science is limited, as you have done, you'd still have no case because the position that "there are not explanations for some things" is self-defeating, as I have already stated. But I have never made that claim, so what is the point of bringing it up? > Unless your criterion assumes that everything that exists is physical, I don't see why I couldn't use your criterion. I don't have a criterion? I don't think there is any distinction to be made, and if you think that there is, it's up to you to demonstrate some way to make the distinction. > If you think there is a contradiction, please state it as a syllogism to highlight it. I'll rephrase to make my statement less ambiguous: It is immoral to do X if you think X is immoral even if X is moral, so you'll be better off doing any X you think is moral even if X is immoral. For any action X, "being moral" is semantically equivalent to "being moral to do", and "immoral" is the negation of "moral". Therefore, your statement says that there exists an action that is moral and not moral at the same time. > That being said, I have no interest in substantiating my claims regarding morality if you don't think that what I am saying could be compatible with science even in principle. The primary problem is not what you are saying, the primary problem is the method you use to justify it. > If I were to supplant "morality", as I have defined it, for "science", and repeated what you said as a reason to care about morality, what objections might you have to the given reason? That you have in no way demonstrated that your version of morality does produce any of the results promised, it's just an empty assertion.

sonusario 7y ago
[part 1] > I don't really know yet what assumptions to build on that you would share. Then just start with something, and if I don't agree with your assumptions then we can decide where to go from there. It doesn't have to be perfectly formal, but at least needs to flow via enumerated propositions. I fail to see how avoiding to produce a formal argument for your position isn't an attempt at equivocation. Why else attempt to only argue informally where the informality is more likely to generate greater ambiguity? > Yes. Example: ... Is it possible that a testable claim could be true and imply another claim that is not testable? === > ... I mean, unless you really do happen to have the evidence that everyone has been waiting for ... Flat earthers may say the same to anyone whom tells them that there is great evidence that the earth is an oblate spheroid. Simply thinking that evidence isn't sufficient doesn't mean that it isn't. > I don't understand what the distinction is that you are making here. Science is a method. Doing science is to use the scientific method. The scientific method involves testing claims. Using the scientific method on non-testable claims is contradictory. The scientific method and the claims it has proven can co-exist with claims that can't be tested so long as those claims don't contradict the scientific claims. While those claims that can't be tested can co-exist with the scientific method, the incompatibility is in attempting to do science with those claims. === > Well, let's see ... Thanks :-) === > And mind you that not much reliability is necessary in order to bootstrap this, because you can largely test that, too. I get what bootstrapping means in compiler terms, but regarding methods of discerning truth, the notion of bootstrapping would seem to fly in the face of Gödel. > But when you think about it, you'll notice that that assumption isn't actually necessary ... And as soon as there is even a little bit of structure to reality that you could figure out, building on your senses is going to outperform ignoring your senses. Still sounds like your relying on the assumption that our senses are reliable... Like, you wouldn't know that using your senses out performs ignoring your senses unless you were already relying on your senses to determine that. === > More precisely, because a statement about math is not a statement about reality, other than that math is part of (human) reality. When you apply the name "John" to one person and the name "Jack" to another, there are physical criterion to distinguish between John and Jack allowing us to verify via testing that a claim only about John is not a claim about Jack. Unless there are physical criterion that allows us to distinguish between math and reality, you've made a false analogy. > The answer is simply: They didn't. The conclusion I'm looking for is "They couldn't" and in particular "They couldn't intelligibly mean 'claims only about math are claims about reality'" and I want to know why. Only saying "they didn't" leaves the door open for someone else who could. === > Yes, those axioms, evaluations and derivations (well, particular aspects of them). Just the same way that 'Game of Thrones' has a referent, given the series, and characters of that series have a referent, given the series. >>>>> The point is: A bunch of axioms and what results from them. Under this axiomatic context: Do distances, spaces, cardinalities, and sets symbolically or conceptually exist absent of any physical representation? === > No, you haven't. At best, you have shown that holding that position is not justified (arguably, you haven't done that either, but it doesn't really matter for this). ... Well, see above. You have to show that it is impossible for something to be unexplainable, not just that we don't know whether something is unexplainable. Explain how I haven't. You're just saying I haven't. Where is the misstep in my argument (formalized below)? ========== 1 ) If X has no explanation, then X can't be explained. 2 ) If X can't be explained, then X is unintelligible. 3 ) If X is unintelligible and X is a part of reality, then the claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" can be truthfully asserted. 4 ) If the claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" can be truthfully asserted, then all claims about reality as a whole are unintelligible. 5 ) If all claims about reality as a whole are unintelligible, then the claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" is unintelligible. 6 ) If the claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" is unintelligible, then the claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" cannot be truthfully asserted. ---------- 7 ) X is a part of reality and X has no explanation (ASSUME for RAA) 8 ) X is a part of reality (Conjunction Elimination from 7) 9 ) X has no explanation (Conjunction Elimination from 7) 10) X can't be explained (Conditional Elimination from 1, 9) 11) X is unintelligible (Conditional Elimination from 2, 10) 12) X is unintelligible and X is a part of reality (Conjunction Introduction 11, 8) 13) The claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" can be truthfully asserted (Conditional Elimination from 3, 12) 14) All claims about reality as a whole are unintelligible (Conditional Elimination from 4, 13) 15) The claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" is unintelligible (Conditional Elimination from 5, 14) 16) The claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" cannot be truthfully asserted (Conditional Elimination from 6, 15) 17) The claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" can be truthfully asserted and The claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" cannot be truthfully asserted (Conjunction Introduction 13, 16) 18) Therefore: It is not the case that X is a part of reality and X has no explanation (Reductio Ad Absurdum from 7 to a contradiction on 17) --------- Rephrasing of the Conclusion: Either X is not a part of reality or X has an explanation (De Morgan) Rephrase of the Rephrasing: If X is a part of reality then X has an explanation (Implication) ==========
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
  [part 1] > Then just start with something, and if I don't agree with your assumptions then we can decide where to go from there. It doesn't have to be perfectly formal, but at least needs to flow via enumerated propositions. Well, it's just that I have already tried that, and even the most basic concepts seem to be problematic. At its core it's pretty simple, actually, but I guess we'll just end up at exactly the same discussion we are already having: 1) Science says that untestable claims about reality are unreliable. 2) Religion says that certain untestable claims about reality are reliable. 3) Therefore, religion's claims as to the reliability of some claims about reality contradicts science's claims as to the reliability of those claims. > Is it possible that a testable claim could be true and imply another claim that is not testable? No. > Flat earthers may say the same to anyone whom tells them that there is great evidence that the earth is an oblate spheroid. Simply thinking that evidence isn't sufficient doesn't mean that it isn't. Yeah ... so? They are still wrong, and I am most likely not. > Science is a method. Doing science is to use the scientific method. No. "The scientific method" is a very naive conception of science that is possibly useful as a teaching device, but not much more. You seem to insist on modeling science as a dogma. The problem is: It just isn't. Doing science is to use whatever methods that deliver demonstrably reliable results and reject whatever methods that don't. There is no fixed method, because that in itself would be unreliable. > The scientific method involves testing claims. Using the scientific method on non-testable claims is contradictory. Then don't use "the scientific method"! It is well-established that untestable claims are unreliable (and I have explained at length why), and so science uses that knowledge to weed out unreliable claims. Weeding out unreliable claims is a very important part of doing science effectively. > The scientific method and the claims it has proven can co-exist with claims that can't be tested so long as those claims don't contradict the scientific claims. No, when science tells us that your claim is indistinguishable from stuff someone made up, then that is not consistent with you telling us that you know it to in fact be true. Either there is indeed a good reason to think it is in fact true, then science is wrong and needs to be corrected so it doesn't classify a reliable claim as unreliable, or there is not, then you are irrational when accepting it anyway. All you are saying here is that it is reasonable to believe made-up nonsense as long as science hasn't disproved it yet. And just to make sure you don't misunderstand: I did not say that whatever model you propose is made-up nonsense. But as it is indistinguishable from made-up nonsense, either both your proposed model and made-up nonsense are reasonable to believe, or neither is, because you don't have the option to distinguish the indistinguishable. > While those claims that can't be tested can co-exist with the scientific method, the incompatibility is in attempting to do science with those claims. No, the incompatibility comes from the fact that both are claims about the same subject matter, namely reality, and that those claims are contradictory. > I get what bootstrapping means in compiler terms, but regarding methods of discerning truth, the notion of bootstrapping would seem to fly in the face of Gödel. All I mean is that you (kindof) have to make some assumption of sorts, because there is no way to prove ultimate reality or disprove hard solipsism. If someone insists that they are a brain in a vat, there is no way to prove to them that they are not. But still, most people are willing to accept that other people exist, at least as a useful model of the reality they experience, so you generally can build on that assumption to make convincing arguments. > Still sounds like your relying on the assumption that our senses are reliable... Like, you wouldn't know that using your senses out performs ignoring your senses unless you were already relying on your senses to determine that. You do know that by definition. Senses are, by definition, those inputs that reflect external reality. Ignoring all inputs about external reality cannot possibly be more successful at manipulating the external reality than using inputs about external reality. And mind you that that would include stuff like a "god sense", if that were a thing, and god were a part of reality that you could sense. > Under this axiomatic context: Do distances, spaces, cardinalities, and sets symbolically or conceptually exist absent of any physical representation? I don't know. I certainly don't see any reason to believe so. > Explain how I haven't. You're just saying I haven't. Where is the misstep in my argument (formalized below)? The primary problem with that whole argument is that it considers having an explanation a property of the thing to be explained, rather than of the subject (not) understanding the thing. For one, that seems like an incoherent concept, but more importantly, it's just completely unhelpful. We were talking in the context of what we can know, and if we can't know something, it is completely irrelevant if it had some property of "having an explanation" that isn't accessible to us. > Where did "'the measured change in state' is an effect 'of the potential of the universe to change state'" come from? I never stated this, thus you've made a straw-man and then drew comparisons with it to electrons, effectively making up the notion of me being incoherent. Uh, well, I dunno, possibly I misunderstood something. Could you then provide a criterion by which to distinguish the physical from the non-physical, that could be applied to an arbitrary object to determine whether it is physical or non-physical, and that's not using just vague terminology that could eaily be interpreted in a dozen different ways? > Another way to think of it. "A: X while Y". A is moral when "X: Throwing darts" and "Y: aiming at a dart board". You can modify Y to "aiming at someones face" and make A immoral with out changing X. Sure. And what would be the analogue of "aiming at the dart board" in your abstract argument then? Wouldn't that be that it is moral to do what is moral when you think it is moral? So, it is immoral to do what is moral when you think it is immoral, and it is moral to do what is moral when you think it is moral. Or in other words: Whether something is moral is completely determined by whether you think it is moral, and whether it is moral has no effect on whether it is moral? > Oh please. The objective definition incorporates subjective conditions. Ex: Define F as the set of propositions {A -> B, C -> D, A -> ~D, C -> ~B}. F is an objective framework which never changes, but what is derived from F is subject to the truth values of A, B, C, and D. But what is your objective definition? There is no problem with having an objective definition that depends on subjective conditions. But there is a problem with having an objective definition that completely delegates to subjective conditions while also claiming to give evaluation results that are independent of (those) subjective conditions, which seems to be what you are doing. There seems to be no situation in which your rule of "doing X is (im)moral if is you think it is (im)moral" would leave the morality of an action undefined, but you still claim that this is the exception to a rule that applies in other cases. What are those other cases? > I'm curious. How do you think theists generally justify their position? There isn't one justification, but still a somewhat limited set of justifications, that are all equally bad, but for different reasons. So, not really something I can answer in under a few dozen pages. But I guess the videos on Matt Dillahunty's youtube channel (SansDeity) do cover quite a lot of those, if you want to find out. They also had a counter-apologetics wiki at http://wiki.ironchariots.org/ http://wiki.ironchariots.org/, but that's been offline for a while ... but, just looking into it, it seems like someone has put up a fork: https://religions.wiki/ https://religions.wiki/ --I guess that might be worth a look as well. > False analogy. I'm claiming that everyone whom employs the methods of the saints achieves their goals of happiness. Your analogy would only be valid if everyone got rich with day trading, and if that were the case then that would be evidence that day trading generally makes people rich. Well, possibly that is what you intended to claim, but you very much didn't. You wrote about saints as opposed to people who didn't use their methods, and you also didn't make the claim that all people who used those methods were saints. So, the analogy was perfectly fine.
sonusario 7y ago
[part 2] > Yes, you said that to be physical is to be able to have measurable effect [...], but then denied that the measurable effects of the potential of the universe to change state (namely, the measured change in state) implies that the potential of the universe to change state is physical, while you also say that the same kind of measurement when applied to the effects of charged particles implies that electrons are physical ... so, it's completely incoherent. Where did "'the measured change in state' is an effect 'of the potential of the universe to change state'" come from? I never stated this, thus you've made a straw-man and then drew comparisons with it to electrons, effectively making up the notion of me being incoherent. === > So, it is, under certain circumstances, immoral to do what is moral? Moral =/= immoral > Like, how could a sentence of the form "X is moral" possibly mean anything other than "doing X is moral"? It doesn't. There is more to the form of my sentences that you are clearly missing. My form is "A: X while you think X is immoral", "doing A is immoral". Another way to think of it. "A: X while Y". A is moral when "X: Throwing darts" and "Y: aiming at a dart board". You can modify Y to "aiming at someones face" and make A immoral with out changing X. > Either it's defined by one's personal opinion, then there is no objective definition, or there is an objective definition, then it's not defined by one's personal opinion. Both at the same time doesn't work. Oh please. The objective definition incorporates subjective conditions. Ex: Define F as the set of propositions {A -> B, C -> D, A -> ~D, C -> ~B}. F is an objective framework which never changes, but what is derived from F is subject to the truth values of A, B, C, and D. === > Now, I am making some assumptions based on how theists generally justify their position, and it is possible, though somewhat unlikely, that you have a completely different justification. I'm curious. How do you think theists generally justify their position? === > 1. You couldn't have picked a more biased example. If I were to show you that there exist millionaires who got rich with day trading, would you consider that evidence that day trading generally makes people rich? False analogy. I'm claiming that everyone whom employs the methods of the saints achieves their goals of happiness. Your analogy would only be valid if everyone got rich with day trading, and if that were the case then that would be evidence that day trading generally makes people rich. > If you want to figure out whether some method reliably gives a particular result, you have to look at all people who have [carried out] the method, not just those who are known for having ended up with a good result. Even terrible methods usually will not prevent all good outcomes. Replaced "attempted the method" with "carried out the method" because you can fail an attempt, but to fail to attempt the method is to not follow the method. There is not a single known instance of a person having carried out the methods employed by the saints that didn't end up with good results. > but it's not at all obvious that they were particularly good at achieving overall-happiness Depends on how you are defining overall happiness. Many saints died joyfully while being tortured to death. > If you wanted to compare methods, you would have to compare scenarios where either only one or only the other method is being used, or you risk misattributing results. The problem you'll find with this is that you're not likely to find anyone who employs no aspects of the methods used by the saints, particularly because such a person, and you'd agree, would be completely depraved.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago

[part 2] > You don't have a definition for physical? You don't think there is a distinction, or do you lack reason to think there is a distinction? For the criterion that I did give what was deficient? (you said that I didn't but I did: to be physical is to be able to have measurable effects or to be measurably affected) I have never heard a coherent explanation of what the distinction would be. Yes, you said that to be physical is to be able to have measurable effect [...], but then denied that the measurable effects of the potential of the universe to change state (namely, the measured change in state) implies that the potential of the universe to change state is physical, while you also say that the same kind of measurement when applied to the effects of charged particles implies that electrons are physical ... so, it's completely incoherent. You have not specified any method that I (or you) could apply to an arbitrary object to classify it as either physical or non-physical, you have just given vague criteria that can be interpreted any way you like and then simply asserted that the potential of the universe to change state is non-physical while electrons are physical. > Another rephrase: It is immoral to do (A: X while thinking X is immoral) even if (B: X is moral). You'll be better off doing (C: any X while thinking X is moral) even if (D: X is immoral). So, it is, under certain circumstances, immoral to do what is moral? Could you explain in what way something could be meaningfully moral that does not mean that doing it is moral? Like, how could a sentence of the form "X is moral" possibly mean anything other than "doing X is moral"? You could just as well be saying "It tastes bad to eat what you don't like even if it tastes good" ... as if there is any essence to "tasting good" that is independent from someone eating the thing. All it means for something to "taste good" is that someone likes to eat it, and if you don't like to eat it, then it doesn't taste good, and the same thing rather obviously seems to apply to "being moral" and "doing". > Regarding A and B: A is immoral, even though B says X of A might be moral. It is not doing X that is immoral, it is doing A. That doesn't resolve the contradiction. All you are saying here is that (A) whether X is moral depends on one's personal opinion and (B) that whether X is moral is objectively defined. You maybe should decide for one of those. Either it's defined by one's personal opinion, then there is no objective definition, or there is an objective definition, then it's not defined by one's personal opinion. Both at the same time doesn't work. > What is my method, and what is problematic with it? What I meant was: The primary problem is not that you are saying that acting according to god's will will maximize your well-being (or whatever the exact claim was, I might be butchering it somewhat), the problem is (probably) how you come to that conclusion. Now, I am making some assumptions based on how theists generally justify their position, and it is possible, though somewhat unlikely, that you have a completely different justification. But in any case, the important question is whether your justification is sufficient, not whether the claim is false. > If, for my demonstration, I were to refer to the lives of the saints, they being better at achieving their goals of happiness than anyone else whom does not employ their methods by far, how might you object then? 1. You couldn't have picked a more biased example. If I were to show you that there exist millionaires who got rich with day trading, would you consider that evidence that day trading generally makes people rich? If you want to figure out whether some method reliably gives a particular result, you have to look at all people who have attempted the method, not just those who are known for having ended up with a good result. Even terrible methods usually will not prevent all good outcomes. 2. That is an extremely limited perspective on happiness. To take a somewhat random example, one big contribution to lack of happiness in the world are diseases. The saints most certainly were not exceptionally good at either helping to cure or manage diseases in general, nor at avoiding getting ill. That doesn't take away from the forms of happiness they might have been able to achieve (not that I am all that familiar with the lives of Catholic saints), but it's not at all obvious that they were particularly good at achieving overall-happiness, nor that their goals were indeed limited to those particular kinds of happiness, and they didn't mind getting ill, for example. If you want to figure out which of any competing methods for achieving a goal is better at doing so, you have to compare scenarios that actually use different methods. A saint who makes all decisions based on what they believe to be divine revelation, say, but who lives in a secular society where all other decisions are made based on scientific ideas, is not in fact using only divine revelation to achieve happiness, but possibly simply benefits from all the discoveries made by people using scientific decisionmaking for increased happiness, with possibly some comparably minor additional improvement due to their god belief, or whatever. If you wanted to compare methods, you would have to compare scenarios where either only one or only the other method is being used, or you risk misattributing results.

sonusario 7y ago
> 1)... 2)... 3)... How do you determine that something is not testable? How do you determine that something is unreliable? When you say "Science says", what do you mean? When you say "Religion says", what do you mean? >> Is it possible that a testable claim could be true and imply another claim that is not testable? > No. Why? === > Yeah ... so? They are still wrong, and I am most likely not. How do you know that there is a greater chance that you are not wrong? What are the percentages you have calculated to conclude this? === > Doing science is to use whatever methods that deliver demonstrably reliable results and reject whatever methods that don't. There is no fixed method, because that in itself would be unreliable. Is "use whatever methods that deliver demonstrably reliable results and reject whatever methods that don't" a fixed method? > It is well-established that untestable claims are unreliable (and I have explained at length why) Would you please explain "at length" once more in the form of a syllogism that ends with the conclusion "Therefore all non-testable claims are unreliable"? > Either there is indeed a good reason to think it is in fact true, then science is wrong and needs to be corrected so it doesn't classify a reliable claim as unreliable It's becoming more clear that we seem to have different criterion for what we consider testable. Would you consider all claims that are provable or disprovable testable? Would you consider all claims that if true, and not provable or disprovable, are not testable? > No, the incompatibility comes from the fact that both are claims about the same subject matter, namely reality, and that those claims are contradictory. What are some claims of science and religion (regarding religion, particularly fundamental ones) that are contradictory, as in they claim opposing things (X and ~X)? Or are the only claims that are incompatible as far as you are concerned the ones stated in your above syllogism? === > All I mean is that you (kindof) have to make some assumption of sorts, because there is no way to prove ultimate reality or disprove hard solipsism. So, there is some first self-evident method that can't be tested for reliability without being circular? > You do know that by definition. Senses are, by definition, those inputs that reflect external reality. A definition you have assumed? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying anything is wrong with that assumption, it is a self-evident one, but call it like it is. === >>> More precisely, because a statement about math is not a statement about reality, other than that math is part of (human) reality. >> When you apply the name "John" to one person and the name "Jack" to another, there are physical criterion to distinguish between John and Jack allowing us to verify via testing that a claim only about John is not a claim about Jack. Unless there are physical criterion that allows us to distinguish between math and reality, you've made a false analogy. >>> The answer is simply: They didn't. >> The conclusion I'm looking for is "They couldn't" and in particular "They couldn't intelligibly mean 'claims only about math are claims about reality'" and I want to know why. Only saying "they didn't" leaves the door open for someone else who could. ? === >> Under this axiomatic context: Do distances, spaces, cardinalities, and sets symbolically or conceptually exist absent of any physical representation? > I don't know. I certainly don't see any reason to believe so. Then you can't see any reason to believe '1 < 2' could make reference to anything other than the physical representations of distances of space, cardinalities of sets, and any other needed mathematical structures? === > The primary problem with that whole argument is that it considers having an explanation a property of the thing to be explained, rather than of the subject (not) understanding the thing. ========== 1 ) If X can't be explained, then X is unintelligible. 2 ) If X is unintelligible and X is a part of reality, then the claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" can be truthfully asserted. 3 ) If the claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" can be truthfully asserted, then all claims about reality as a whole are unintelligible. 4 ) If all claims about reality as a whole are unintelligible, then the claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" is unintelligible. 5 ) If the claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" is unintelligible, then the claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" cannot be truthfully asserted. ---------- 6 ) X is a part of reality and X can't be explained (ASSUME for RAA) 7 ) X is a part of reality (Conjunction Elimination from 6) 8 ) X can't be explained (Conjunction Elimination from 6) 9) X is unintelligible (Conditional Elimination from 1, 8) 10) X is unintelligible and X is a part of reality (Conjunction Introduction 9, 7) 11) The claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" can be truthfully asserted (Conditional Elimination from 2, 10) 12) All claims about reality as a whole are unintelligible (Conditional Elimination from 3, 11) 13) The claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" is unintelligible (Conditional Elimination from 4, 12) 14) The claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" cannot be truthfully asserted (Conditional Elimination from 5, 13) 15) The claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" can be truthfully asserted and the claim "reality as a whole is unintelligible" cannot be truthfully asserted (Conjunction Introduction 11, 14) 16) Therefore: It is not the case that X is a part of reality and X can't be explained (Reductio Ad Absurdum from 6 to a contradiction on 15) --------- Rephrasing of the Conclusion: Either X is not a part of reality or X can be explained (De Morgan) Rephrase of the Rephrasing: If X is a part of reality then X can be explained (Implication) ========== > Could you then provide a criterion by which to distinguish the physical from the non-physical, that could be applied to an arbitrary object to determine whether it is physical or non-physical, and that's not using just vague terminology that could eaily be interpreted in a dozen different ways? To exist and be non-physical is to exist and be incapable of changing state, to exist and be incapable of changing state is to exist and be non-physical. === > Whether something is moral is completely determined by whether you think it is moral, and whether it is moral has no effect on whether it is moral? Wow have I done a terrible job of separating the conscience act from the external act. To be abundantly clear, it is immoral to violate your conscience. There can be two actions that occur when you perform an action: Choosing an action is itself an action, and performing the chosen action is separate from the choosing of that action. So if I where to correct my comments along these lines I would properly state: "It is immoral to [choose to] do what you think is immoral even if [what you choose to do] is moral, so you'll be better off doing [an action] you think is moral even if [that action] is immoral [because choosing to do otherwise would be immoral]. You are better off this way because you are not as/(at all) culpable for your actions if you didn't know they were wrong. That being said we are obligated to correct our neighbors' incorrect moral beliefs and to be open to being corrected." === > Sorry, but your claims really are getting absurd. Argumentum ad Lapidem Do you expect all true claims to sound rational before you've heard their justification? What did you expect given that I haven't been taking any steps to establish them? > Pretty much what you'd expect from someone who tries to find any justification for a predetermined conclusion, rather than following the evidence where it leads, though. "Ad Hominem" Ouch. Like you've done with 'claims only about math are not claims about reality'? (<- ad hominem) That might be what you'd expect, but if you claim that's the kind of person I am then you'll need to substantiate that claim. Lol, I've stated that I'm not taking any steps to establish my claims to you, as they don't usefully tie into to our compatibility discussion, several times now. > ... it simply means that you are making unsubstantiated claims. I've stated that I'm not taking any steps to establish my claims here several times now. Echo echo echo ...
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
  > Would you please explain "at length" once more in the form of a syllogism that ends with the conclusion "Therefore all non-testable claims are unreliable"? Because they are indistinguishable from stuff someone just made up. Do you agree that making shit up is not a reliable way to determine facts about reality? > It's becoming more clear that we seem to have different criterion for what we consider testable. I suspect that's a central problem, yes. The scientific notion of testability is something people with a religious background often seem to have difficulty wrapping their head around. > Would you consider all claims that are provable or disprovable testable? Would you consider all claims that if true, and not provable or disprovable, are not testable? First of all, just to make sure we aren't getting confused: This is all about "real truths", not about "formal truths", as "proof" is generally the term used by mathematics to describe derivation of formal truths, not so much by scientists, who would rather use terms like "evidence" or "demonstration" to describe, well, evidence for a hypothesis ... though people often colloquially use "proof" for either, even scientists, but it should be understood that it is being used in a meaning distinct from the mathematical use. Also, I suspect that you are probably completely on the wrong track with "provability", even if I assume that you mean some sort of evidence-driven thing, because testability is not about whether some claim has been shown to be true or false, but about whether the claim could be shown to be false. Testability is not a question of showing that something is true, because that isn't really a thing with inductive reasoning: For any model where you have not actually tested every prediction that you could derive from it (and those tend to be infinitely many for any non-trivial claims), you can not possibly be sure that there are no circumstances under which it would make a wrong prediction. So, testability is only concerned with showing that a claim is false, by demonstrating a contradiction, because you can indeed be sure that a model that makes predictions contradicted by a single test is incorrect (assuming you did not screw up the test, of course). Now, of course, for a claim to be considered testable, it is not required that you demonstrate that it is false, that would be kinda pointless. The requirement is that you could potentially demonstrate it to be false if it were false. So, for example, "water boils at 100 °C at atmospheric pressure" is testable, because there is an experiment that you could do that would contradict the claim if it weren't true. For example, if water actually only boiled at 200 °C, you could put together a demonstration where you heated water to 150 °C, showing that it didn't boil, thus contradicting the claim, thus demonstrating that it is false. On the other hand, "invisible unicorns exist" is not testable, because there is no experiment that you could possibly do that would show it to be false. No matter what you observe about the world, there is no possible observation that could contradict the claim. That is simply because the claim does not make any predictions about observable reality--and if there is no prediction, there is no way to make an observation that would contradict any prediction. Another common form of untestable claims, especially from religious people, is of the form "God listens to prayer and sends you help when you need it. When you pray, but you don't receive the help you think you need, god knew better that you actually didn't need the help you thought you needed." So, you pray, and either you get what you prayed for, then that is counted as evidence that god listened to the prayer, or you don't get what you prayed for, then that is counted as evidence that god knows better than you. The important point is: No matter what happens, it is counted as evidence for god. But an experiment where the result is counted as evidence for a particular hypothesis, no matter what the result of the experiment is, doesn't actually provide any evidence for anything, because the conclusion from the experiment does not actually depend on the result of the experiment. If you count every possible outcome as evidence for your hypothesis, there is no point in even doing the experiment, the result is the same as if you were to simply come to the conclusion without an experiment. Or in other words: Such a claim is indistinguishable from something that someone just made up. > What are some claims of science and religion (regarding religion, particularly fundamental ones) that are contradictory, as in they claim opposing things (X and ~X)? Religion: "It is warranted to believe that a god exists." Science: "It is not warranted to believe that a god exists." > A definition you have assumed? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying anything is wrong with that assumption, it is a self-evident one, but call it like it is. WTF? Yes, I am assuming a shared definition of every single word that I am using. Are you expecting me to spell that out, as if it could possibly be any different? Yes, I am assuming that you share the definition of "to be", and the definition of "different", and the definition of "yes", and the definition of "definition", and the definition of "to assume", ... seriously? > 1 ) If X can't be explained, then X is unintelligible. [...] Did you change anything? This is again treating the explainability as a property of X, which is incoherent nonsense. What we are talking about is that some particular subject/class of subjects possibly won't ever gain certain knowledge. So, a sensible way to express that is something along the lines of "If X will never be understood by humans, then ...". Maybe you could rewrite your argument in those terms? > To exist and be non-physical is to exist and be incapable of changing state, to exist and be incapable of changing state is to exist and be non-physical. So, how does that distinguish the physical from the non-physical, when the physical isn't even mentioned? > Wow have I done a terrible job of separating the conscience act from the external act. To be abundantly clear, it is immoral to violate your conscience. There can be two actions that occur when you perform an action: Choosing an action is itself an action, and performing the chosen action is separate from the choosing of that action. So if I where to correct my comments along these lines I would properly state: "It is immoral to [choose to] do what you think is immoral even if [what you choose to do] is moral, so you'll be better off doing [an action] you think is moral even if [that action] is immoral [because choosing to do otherwise would be immoral]. So, how exactly are you adding anything of substance here? All of those additional words don't do anything about the brokenness of the argument, unless you are saying that it is possible to act in a way that is not in accordance with how you choose to act ... which is just gibberish. The subjective idea of what is moral still fully determines the choice, and unless you can choose to act differently that you choose to act (WTF?), any independent claims about the morality of the action still are as vacuous as they were before. > You are better off this way because you are not as/(at all) culpable for your actions if you didn't know they were wrong. That being said we are obligated to correct our neighbors' incorrect moral beliefs and to be open to being corrected." What does that have to do with anything? I thought we were talking about morality, not culpability, nor obligations to neighbors?! > Do you expect all true claims to sound rational before you've heard their justification? What did you expect given that I haven't been taking any steps to establish them? No, but I expect that anyone who is serious about a discussion doesn't just suddenly dump on me some outlandish claims with the expectation that I will accept them for the purposes of building arguments on them. It should hardly be a surprise to you that I don't share the assumption that those claims that you were making are true, so it is obviously completely pointless to even mention them if you don't intend to justify them. You might as well just be saying "I am right" ... might be true, but it's obviously guaranteed to be unconvincing. > "Ad Hominem" Nope. That simply wasn't an argument at all, just an observation. > That might be what you'd expect, but if you claim that's the kind of person I am then you'll need to substantiate that claim. Correct. Which is why I am not making that claim. I am simply telling you that you maybe should check extra carefully whether that is what you are doing. Because I, ultimately, can't.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago

[part 2] > Replaced "attempted the method" with "carried out the method" because you can fail an attempt, but to fail to attempt the method is to not follow the method. There is not a single known instance of a person having carried out the methods employed by the saints that didn't end up with good results. Those methods don't possibly include as one step being successful? As in: If you don't get the good result, then the only accepted explanation is that you didn't do it right? Because that would be an untestable claim, then. Also, in any case, that doesn't resolve the bias, as that sounds pretty much like a textbook example of survivorship bias. Or in other words: Why would you expect to know about someone carrying out the methods and failing? The fact that you don't know about them does not mean that they don't exist, and it seems pretty obvious that those who succeed would be way more likely to be known. Also, it seems just completely impossible to know that such a person never existed, given that anyone out of billions or humans could have been someone who tried? > Depends on how you are defining overall happiness. Many saints died joyfully while being tortured to death. Seriously? You are telling me that you can't recognize this as a case of mental illness, and the only possible explanation in your mind is that they found a path to happiness that would be usable by anyone? Sorry, but your claims really are getting absurd. Pretty much what you'd expect from someone who tries to find any justification for a predetermined conclusion, rather than following the evidence where it leads, though. > The problem you'll find with this is that you're not likely to find anyone who employs no aspects of the methods used by the saints, particularly because such a person, and you'd agree, would be completely depraved. I'm not sure that I would agree they would be depraved, I am not really sure what your point or argument even is there. But in any case, sure, that might be a problem, but that is not my problem. If you make a claim, it's your responsibility to provide the evidence, and if that's too difficult, then that doesn't mean that your position is reasonable without evidence, it simply means that you are making unsubstantiated claims.

sonusario 7y ago
> 1)... 2)... 3)... How do you determine that a claim is not falsifiable? How do you determine that a claim is unreliable? When you say "Science says", do you mean "Science is defined as such ..." or "Science has arrived at the conclusion ..."? When you say "Religion says", do you mean "All religions assert ..."? > Because they are indistinguishable from stuff someone just made up. Do you agree that making shit up is not a reliable way to determine facts about reality? While I agree that making shit up is not reliable, some claims that are "indistinguishable from stuff someone just made up" aren't necessarily untrue. Given that claims "indistinguishable from stuff someone just made up" could be true, one might think that there may be claims which, though are non-testable, are reliable for use. If that is not the case, then you have to establish the claim "non-testable claims are unreliable" in order to support what you're saying sciences asserts ("that untestable claims about reality are unreliable"). Also, when you say a claim is reliable, what is it reliable for? === s> Is it possible that a testable claim could be true and imply another claim that is not testable? z> No. s> Why? ? === > ... testability ... is about whether the claim could be shown to be false. ... The requirement is that you could potentially demonstrate it to be false if it were false. You may need to elaborate for me, because true claims can't potentially be shown to be false in principle. So, are we calling claims falsifiable because we don't know beyond inductive reasoning that they are true and can out of ignorance come up with test that potentially demonstrates they are false? === z> Doing science is to use whatever methods that deliver demonstrably reliable results and reject whatever methods that don't. There is no fixed method, because that in itself would be unreliable. s> Is "use whatever methods that deliver demonstrably reliable results and reject whatever methods that don't" a fixed method? ? === > Religion: "It is warranted to believe that a god exists." > Science: "It is not warranted to believe that a god exists." Assuming your saying "It is not warranted" because the claim "God exists" is not falsifiable, how has it been shown that the claim "God exists" is not a falsifiable claim? === > WTF? Yes... ... seriously? Oh, so you agree that science relies upon the reliability of the senses and that the claim "our senses are reliable" is not falsifiable in principle? === z> More precisely, because a statement about math is not a statement about reality, other than that math is part of (human) reality. s> When you apply the name "John" to one person and the name "Jack" to another, there are physical criterion to distinguish between John and Jack allowing us to verify via testing that a claim only about John is not a claim about Jack. Unless there are physical criterion that allows us to distinguish between math and reality, you've made a false analogy. ?? === z> The answer is simply: They didn't. s> The conclusion I'm looking for is "They couldn't" and in particular "They couldn't intelligibly mean 'claims only about math are claims about reality'" and I want to know why. Only saying "they didn't" leaves the door open for someone else who could. ?? === s> Under this axiomatic context: Do distances, spaces, cardinalities, and sets symbolically or conceptually exist absent of any physical representation? z> I don't know. I certainly don't see any reason to believe so. s>Then you can't see any reason to believe '1 < 2' could make reference to anything other than the physical representations of distances of space, cardinalities of sets, and any other needed mathematical structures? ? === > Did you change anything? Did you read it? The first argument contains 18 points and said "X has". The second argument contains 16 points and does not say "X has". > This is again treating the explainability as a property of X, which is incoherent nonsense. Could you quote something from the second argument that treated "explainability as a property of X"? === > So, how does that distinguish the physical from the non-physical, when the physical isn't even mentioned? I guess the implication wasn't obvious enough. To exist and be physical is to exist and be capable of changing state, to exist and be capable of changing state is to exist and be physical. === > ... unless you are saying that it is possible to act in a way that is not in accordance with how you choose to act ... which is just gibberish. "Intend" is probably a better word than "choose". === > No, but I expect that anyone who is serious about a discussion doesn't just suddenly dump on me some outlandish claims with the expectation that I will accept them for the purposes of building arguments on them. Like 'claims only about math are not claims about reality'?
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
  > While I agree that making shit up is not reliable, some claims that are "indistinguishable from stuff someone just made up" aren't necessarily untrue. Correct. Which is why I am not saying that claims that are indistinguishable from stuff that someone just made up are false. Really, even stuff that someone in fact just made up is not necessarily untrue. It is possible to make shit up and end up with the truth. But most claims that you could make up are false (for any claim A that you could make up, you could also make up at the very least the claim that not A, and at most one of those two can be true), which is why just making things up is not a reliable way to determine truth. > Given that claims "indistinguishable from stuff someone just made up" could be true, one might think that there may be claims which, though are non-testable, are reliable for use. "reliability of a claim" means the probability that the claim is true, based on what you know. The fact that some of the claims might be true does not mean that the probability of any particular claim being true is high. > Also, when you say a claim is reliable, what is it reliable for? It's not reliable _for_ anything, it is simply likely to be a correct description of reality. > You may need to elaborate for me, because true claims can't potentially be shown to be false in principle. Yes, they can, and that is the most important part of it that you have to wrap your head around. The claim "water boils at 100 °C (at standard pressure ...)" is probably true, I suppose you would agree? Here is an observation that could potentially be made that would count as falsification of the claim: Water in liquid form at 200 °C (at standard pressure ...). Testability is not about actual demonstration, it is about potential demonstration. There has to be some demonstration that, if it were done, would be accepted as demonstrating that the claim is false. The whole point is that for actually true claims, those demonstrations will never be actualized. But for actually false claims, they might, and often are. And that is how we weed out false claims, thus increasing the concentration of actually true claims in what we consider "state of the art human knowledge". It is important to remember that "water boils at 100 °C" is not something we know for absolutely certain to be true. All attempts to falsify it so far have failed, that is all: All experiments so far have not produced any result that contradicts that claim. But for all we know, someone could demonstrate liquid water at 200 °C tomorrow (or water steam at 50 °C, or whatever--there are tons of demonstrations that would be accepted as falsification of that claim), and that would establish that this claim is false, after all. > Assuming your saying "It is not warranted" because the claim "God exists" is not falsifiable, how has it been shown that the claim "God exists" is not a falsifiable claim? What would you accept as falsification of the claim of the existence of the god that you believe in? > Oh, so you agree that science relies upon the reliability of the senses and that the claim "our senses are reliable" is not falsifiable in principle? All you are really saying here is "What if reality isn't real?" That is just a pointless objection. Whatever "ultimate reality" looks like, we still have to deal with the reality that we experience, and we most certainly experience what we experience, and the possibility that we might not be experiencing "ultimate reality" does not change that we are experiencing a reality, and that it is meaningful to make statements about that reality. > Did you read it? Yes, but it didn't seem like you changed anything of substance, in particular with regards to my criticism. > Could you quote something from the second argument that treated "explainability as a property of X"? The problem is that you are writing so massively ambiguous statements that it is very hard to nail down what you actually mean, and thus where exactly you treat explainability as a property of X. Even the first half of a sentence, "If X can't be explained", certainly sounds like "can't be explained" is a property of X. To avoid some of that ambiguity, I would very much prefer if you were to explicitly write down your argument completely avoiding "can be explained" or "has an explanation", instead using only "is known to humans" or "will be known to humans", and show that way that humans will at some point in time know everything. And yes, I am aware that I am skipping a lot of stuff. I am getting the impression that we aren't getting anywhere with those due to way more fundamental misunderstanding, and I suspect a lot of it boils down to testability one way or another, so I think we are better off concentrating on that for now, instead of wasting a lot of time with going in circles.

sonusario 7y ago
> ... which is why just making things up is not a reliable way to determine truth. Your argument states "Science says that untestable claims about reality are unreliable" and not "Science says that making things up is not a reliable way to determine truth". Your argument also states "Religion says that certain untestable claims about reality are reliable" and not "Religion says that making things up is a reliable way to determine truth". There is a difference between the reliability of finding the truth by making up a claim and the reliability of the claim itself. Your argument (from what I can tell as it is written) is not about the reliability of making up a claim but about the reliability of a claim itself. Even if your argument were referring to the reliability of making up a claim, I don't know of any religion that says or concludes that making up claims is reliable. Even if one did, that wouldn't lend itself to making the blanket statement "Religion says ...". > "reliability of a claim" means the probability that the claim is true, based on what you know. The fact that some of the claims might be true does not mean that the probability of any particular claim being true is high. Defining, conversely, the "unreliability of a claim" as the probability that the claim is false, your argument becomes the following: > 1) Science says that untestable claims about reality have a probability of being false. > 2) Religion says that certain untestable claims about reality have a probability of being true. > 3) Therefore, religion's claims as to the probability of being true of some claims about reality contradicts science's claims as to the probability of being true of those claims. Given that your argument makes no reference to what is more or less probable, no contradiction has been established (pending whether you mean unreliable to mean less likely and reliable to mean more likely (but then you'd need to establish how those probabilities were derived)). I don't want to put words in your mouth, so you may want to rephrase your argument because I doubt this is what you meant given that it does not establish your point. > It's not reliable _for_ anything, it is simply likely to be a correct description of reality. You can't/don't rely on scientific claims "_for_" anything? As in, the claims of science are not reliable for things like putting satellites into orbit or pursuing further truths, they are just likely a correct description of reality? >> Assuming your saying "It is not warranted" because the claim "God exists" is not falsifiable, how has it been shown that the claim "God exists" is not a falsifiable claim? > What would you accept as falsification of the claim of the existence of the god that you believe in? You're shifting the burden of proof. I have at least five independent criterion, but you don't need to know them. Not having something to accept as falsification for the claim "water only boils at 100°C or greater (under 1 atm)" doesn't mean that there can't be one. So unless you have some solid demonstration of your claim, because lack of evidence doesn't seal the deal, then you have no convincing basis for claiming "'God exists' is not a falsifiable claim". > All you are really saying here is "What if reality isn't real?" ... Hahaha, what?? Not at all! I'm saying that, given what seems to be your want of disregarding all non-falsifiable claims as "indistinguishable from stuff someone just made up", you'd also be disregarding the claim "our senses our reliable" as "indistinguishable from stuff someone just made up" because that claim is not falsifiable in principle (it being non-falsifiable something we seem to agree on since we think it is self-evident). If you think the claim "our senses are reliable" is falsifiable, then YOU would be the one likely to assert the question "What if reality isn't real?". > And yes, I am aware that I am skipping a lot of stuff. ... Thank you for mentioning it. I couldn't tell if stuff was being missed or ignored. It can be easy to miss things in walls of text. > ... so I think we are better off concentrating on that for now ... Sure, I've done more skimming myself.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
  > There is a difference between the reliability of finding the truth by making up a claim and the reliability of the claim itself. What is "the reliability of the claim itself", if it is not the reliability of the method that is used to estalish that claim? > Given that your argument makes no reference to what is more or less probable Yes, it does. Reliability (of a claim) is a scale expressing a probability of being true. "reliable" is the high probability end of that scale, "unreliable" is the low probability end of that scale. > (but then you'd need to establish how those probabilities were derived) Yes, I have, over, and over, and over, even in my last post. > You can't/don't rely on scientific claims "_for_" anything? That wasn't the question. Obviously, the more likely a claim is true, the more you are justified to rely on it as the basis for making decisions about the future. But the phrase "claim A is reliable" makes perfect sense without a "for X", simply as an expression of how likely the claim is to be true. > As in, the claims of science are not reliable for things like putting satellites into orbit or pursuing further truths, they are just likely a correct description of reality? Being a correct description of reality is what makes a claim useful for making predictions about the future behavior of that reality, and thus for influencing reality in such a way that a satellite does behave as intended/predicted. > You're shifting the burden of proof. No, I am not, I am simply performing the empirical observation that is required to establish whether the claim is testable. > Not having something to accept as falsification for the claim "water only boils at 100°C or greater (under 1 atm)" doesn't mean that there can't be one. Actually, that is all that testability is about: Whether there is something that would convince you that you are wrong if it were demonstrated to you. For "water only boils at 100°C or greater (under 1 atm)" that should be the case, because that statement under standard English language rules has semantics that imply a contradiction with certain potential observations. But ultimately, what counts is whether whoever is making the claim would accept those demonstrations as contradicting their claim. > (it being non-falsifiable something we seem to agree on since we think it is self-evident). No, not at all. The problem is that that whole question is massively ambiguous, and the answer is completely different depending on the interpretation, or possibly some interpretations are just nonsensical questions. If you mean whether our senses correctly reflect "ultimate reality": That would indeed be unfalsifiable, and for that exact reason it is indistinguishable from shit someone made up, and thus a highly unreliable claim. If you mean whether our senses generally produce a coherent picture of an outside world: That is falsifiable, in that we can cross-correlate different senses, between perceptions of the same sense over time, as well as between our own and others' perceptions. I am guessing that that is maybe why you say that this is self-evident, but really, it's way more than just self-evident. Actually, that is exactly how we do know in how many ways our senses indeed are not reliable. There is a lot of redundancy in our senses (and indirect methods of perceiving the world) that allows us to test the reliability of each sense, with no sense in particular being one that we just have to trust blindly. But mind you that all those tests of our senses do not in any way demonstrate that we can sense "ultimate reality". Possibly, we can't, but that is not a problem for our ability to navigate the (perceptual) reality we find outselves in, or for the testability of that fact.

sonusario 7y ago
> What is "the reliability of the claim itself", if it is not the reliability of the method that is used to estalish that claim? Wut?? If you can't see that "the reliability of the claim itself" =/= "the reliability of the method that is used to establish that claim", then I think we are done here because this would make for an insuperable disagreement. In the first phrase 'reliability' refers to the claim, and in the second it refers to the method. The claim and the method that is used to establish that claim are two different things. > Yes, I have, over, and over, and over, even in my last post. No you haven't. The method 'making-things-up' we already agree is unreliable, but you have not established that non-testable claims have a greater probability of being untrue rather than true. If I missed it, perhaps you could quote what you think has been so obviously stated that you needn't bother repeating it? I'll ask you to include an inequality proof and/or the percentages that have been calculated to reach/assert this conclusion. > But the phrase "claim A is reliable" makes perfect sense without a "for X", simply as an expression of how likely the claim is to be true. So you think these phrases are equal?: "claim A is reliable" = "it is likely claim A is true" = "the method that is used to establish claim A is reliable" > Being a correct description of reality is what makes a claim useful for making predictions about the future behavior of that reality, and thus for influencing reality in such a way that a satellite does behave as intended/predicted. And claims that are correct descriptions of reality are not reliable "_for_" such use? > No, I am not, I am simply performing the empirical observation that is required to establish whether the claim is testable. If you are performing said observation now to form a basis for your claim, did your claim not have a basis before? > But ultimately, what counts is whether whoever is making the claim would accept those demonstrations as contradicting their claim. So, whether a claim is falsifiable is subjective? Also, are claims of the form "X is not falsifiable" falsifiable? If so, how might they be falsified? > If you mean whether our senses generally produce a coherent picture of an outside world: That is falsifiable, in that we can cross-correlate different senses, between perceptions of the same sense over time, as well as between our own and others' perceptions. Is the claim "our senses have at least one way in which they are reliable" falsifiable?
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
  > The claim and the method that is used to establish that claim are two different things. Yes, of course they are! But there simply is no such thing as "the reliability of the claim" that is distinct from "the reliability of the method used to arrive at the claim", because reliability as an attribute of the claim itself is a category error. The way "the reliability of the claim" is commonly used is simply as a short-hand to refer to what more precisely would be called "the reliability of the method used to arrive at the claim". If you take the claim "this bridge can bear 1632 tons", then what determines the "reliability of that claim" is how it was derived, there is no inherent reliability to just the claim itself. If someone rolled some dice to create that number, then that is a completely unreliable claim. If someone put 1632 tons of steel blocks on the bridge and it didn't fail, then that is at the very least a lot more reliable than rolling some dice. The fact that the exact same claim has completely different reliability, depending on how it was arrived at, should tell you that the reliability is actually a property of the process used to derive it, and not of the claim itself, even if that is how it is commonly phrased. > The method 'making-things-up' we already agree is unreliable, but you have not established that non-testable claims have a greater probability of being untrue rather than true. Do you agree that made-up claims have a greater probability of being untrue rather than true? Do you agree that non-testable claims are indistinguishable from claims arrived at by making them up? > So you think these phrases are equal?: "claim A is reliable" = "it is likely claim A is true" = "the method that is used to establish claim A is reliable" Seems sensible to me! > And claims that are correct descriptions of reality are not reliable "_for_" such use? Oh, sure, of course they are! I had understood your question to mean that you thought that the specification of a particular application was missing, or something along those lines. But yes, that they are reliable for such use is the implication, of course. > If you are performing said observation now to form a basis for your claim, did your claim not have a basis before? Really, I have implicitly switched the claim, simply to enable a productive discussion. The problem is that "god" is a word that is used to refer to so many different and mutually contradictory concepts that demonstrating any claim for all of those concepts can be a lot of work, and often is even impossible because someone will come along and claim that god is the sun or something (and under that definition, obviously, god does exist, but probably isn't Jesus, say). So, before, I made a claim that is generally true for the vast majority of the god concepts that people have, just for a wide variety of reasons, depending on the specific concept. But explaining how the claim is true for most/all god concepts is a lot of work--and also probably not the most useful thing to do, when you, presumably, have a specific god concept in mind, so focusing on that seems more productive than getting lost in ideas that you may not agree with anyway. Which is why I switched from the general claim to a more specific claim that's presumably more relevant to you. > So, whether a claim is falsifiable is subjective? No, it's not that the falsifiability is subjective, but rather that what ultimately matters is the falsifiability of what you actually think, not of what someone else interprets your statements to mean. If someone says "water boils at 100 °C", you would presumably agree that that is a statement that implies certain possibilities to falsify it, and as such the statement would qualify as a falsifiable claim, based on how the English language is generally understood to work. But if you were to demonstrate liquid water at 200 °C to whoever is uttering that sentence and they would still keep making the same statement, then their internal model that they try to express as "water boils at 100 °C" is still untestable, and that is still a problem. > Also, are claims of the form "X is not falsifiable" falsifiable? If so, how might they be falsified? By showing that whoever is holding the supposedly unfalsifiable position would actually accept some demonstrations as reasons to reject the claim? > Is the claim "our senses have at least one way in which they are reliable" falsifiable? Are we talking about "reliable for detecting ultimate reality" or "reliable for detecting the reality that they are detecting"?
  - sonusario 7y ago
    You > "But there simply is no such thing as "the reliability of the claim" that is distinct from "the reliability of the method used to arrive at the claim...". Also you (in response to my question "And claims that are correct descriptions of reality are not reliable "_for_" such use?")> "Oh, sure, of course they are!" > The way "the reliability of the claim" is commonly used is simply as a short-hand to refer to what more precisely would be called "the reliability of the method used to arrive at the claim". Would you provide a source on this being the common usage? > Do you agree that made-up claims have a greater probability of being untrue rather than true? If that is the case, it is not obvious, because for every claim "X" there is also the claim "not X", meaning that exactly half all claims are true. So you'll need to establish what would tip that balance. > Seems sensible to me! Let A be the true claim "this bridge can bear 1632 tons", and the method that produced it is "making the claim A up on the spot". Would you still say these phrases are equal?: "the claim A is reliable" = "it is likely the claim A is true" = "making the claim A up on the spot to establish claim A is reliable"? ===================== > By showing that whoever is holding the supposedly unfalsifiable position would actually accept some demonstrations as reasons to reject the claim? Are you asking me? ======= 0) According to you: If X is falsifiable, then X "is not something we know for absolutely certain to be true, [but that] all attempts to falsify it so far have failed, that is all". === 1) If the claim "X is not falsifiable" is falsifiable, then "X is not falsifiable" "is not something we know for absolutely certain to be true, [but that] all attempts to falsify it so far have failed, that is all". (Substitution 0) 2) According to you: The claim "X is not falsifiable" is falsifiable"?". (ASSUMPTION) 3) Therefore: The "X is not falsifiable" "is not something we know for absolutely certain to be true, [but that] all attempts to falsify it so far have failed, that is all". (Conditional Elimination from 1, 2) ======= In other words, by your definitions, there is no way to establish with certainty that a claim is not falsifiable, if its not being falsifiable can be falsified. ===================== >> Is the claim "our senses have at least one way in which they are reliable" falsifiable? > Are we talking about "reliable for detecting ultimate reality" or "reliable for detecting the reality that they are detecting"? Reliable for detecting the reality that they are detecting.
    - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago

> You > "But there simply is no such thing as "the reliability of the claim" that is distinct from "the reliability of the method used to arrive at the claim...". > Also you (in response to my question "And claims that are correct descriptions of reality are not reliable "_for_" such use?")> "Oh, sure, of course they are!" I'm not sure what you are getting at?! If you think I should be objecting to you using the word "correct", because that is a property of the claim itself and not dependent on the method used to arrive at it: Sure, assume that I object to that. But it seemed to me that that wasn't relevant to what you were actually asking about, namely, whether reliability of a claim implies potential usefulness of that claim _for_ some further purpose. > Would you provide a source on this being the common usage? I really don't understand why you are asking this. I already explained why the notion of reliability of the claim itself doesn't make any sense/is a category error. And I suppose that you would agree that people do use phrases like "claim X is reliable", and that it is usually perfectly understandable what they mean by that. Also, under the interpretation that I suggested, you generally do understand what people are trying to tell you when they use such a phrase, while avoiding the obvious logical nonsense that follows if you assume that reliability is a property of the claim itself. Now, it may well be true that many people who use such a phrase have never really thought through what exactly they mean by that, and thus have never made a conscious decision of whether they are using one definition or the other. But that isn't a reason to think that they likely intend to use a definition that leads to contradictions. It seems like you are asking me to provide a source for the claim that people are not generally intending to talk nonsense. It's not that that isn't a thing that can be investigated empirically, but I doubt that you actually disagree on this. > If that is the case, it is not obvious, because for every claim "X" there is also the claim "not X", meaning that exactly half all claims are true. So you'll need to establish what would tip that balance. Well, while that is kinda true, it's also not really particularly relevant in this context? Even if there were a 50/50 chance, that would not be a useful source of information, would it? The other problem with that perspective is that it counts redundant claims more than once. Like, if some measurement of X could give the result 0, 1, or 2, then "X is not 0" is the same claim as "X is 1 or 2", just phrased differently. So, if you want to get a useful result, you have to rather compare non-redundant claims of the same structure and at the same resolution. If you do that, you notice that there in particular are tons of claims about numerical values, and that there is an infinite number of either discrete values of or equal-sized intervals that you could plug into any such claim to make up new claims--but for any particular measurement, only one of those infinitely many possible values or ranges will correspond to reality, and almost all claims that you could make up this way will be wrong. If you don't find that convincing, I guess we might also replace "made-up claims are almost all false" with "made-up claims are no more likely to be true than chance", as you seem to already be agreeing with that? I don't think I drew any conclusions that require the stronger claim, so we might as well go with a lower lower bound instead. > Let A be the true claim "this bridge can bear 1632 tons", and the method that produced it is "making the claim A up on the spot". > Would you still say these phrases are equal?: "the claim A is reliable" = "it is likely the claim A is true" = "making the claim A up on the spot to establish claim A is reliable"? Well, they all evaluate to false, so yes? Though I don't understand why you mention that the claim is true, as that makes no difference!? In the scenario you are describing, there is no reason for anyone to believe that it is true, because all they know is that someone made it up. > Are you asking me? No, I am telling you--though I wondered why you asked the original question, as the possibility to falsify that claim seems kinda ovious!? > In other words, by your definitions, there is no way to establish with certainty that a claim is not falsifiable, if its not being falsifiable can be falsified. So? > Reliable for detecting the reality that they are detecting. Then I don't even understand what the point of that question is. Like, what else would our senses detect, if not what they detect? Could we maybe transfer this to a different scenario where it isn't as easy to get confused by intuitions? Like, assume there exists a robot with a bunch of sensors. And let's assume you can remote-control this robot, and remotely read what its sensor inputs measure. Now, with this robot you could do what I described above: You could check all those sensors for consistency. And maybe you could somehow communicate with other robots and check for consistency with the readings of their sensors. None of that guarantees that the robot (and thus you through it) sees "real reality", for all you know, it was built with all sensor connectors linked up to a computer that generates fake sensor signals from a simulation running on that computer, including a simulation of the stimuli from interacting with other (actually simulated) robots. But you said that that wasn't what we were talking about. So, if we aren't talking about that, then we are talking about actual sensors!? Is your question whether this guarantees that the sensors are free of any defects? (Well, no?) Or whether it is guaranteed that the robot itself can not be defective? (No?) Or ... what else? I really don't understand what you are asking here.

sonusario 7y ago
Anything you've said with > ... reliability is a property of the claim itself ... I have never stated that I thought this. You may have thought my wording implied that, but that has never been what I was getting at. You've incorrectly inferred this on your own, so I never addressed any statement you made regarding it as it was getting away from the point. But clearly since you've struggled to wrap your head around that, I've now spelled it out for you. > It seems like you are asking me to provide a source for the claim that people are not generally intending to talk nonsense. It's not that that isn't a thing that can be investigated empirically, but I doubt that you actually disagree on this. No, I've been getting at asking why you think people mean "the method used to arrive at claim X is reliable" rather than something like "claim X can be trusted for use", when "claim X is reliable" is stated. Your stance is also noticeably less coherent when it is considered that "claim X" can't be replaced by "this wrench" or "this car" and not lack significant ambiguity ("the method used to arrive at this car is reliable"). Where as if you were to replace "claim X" in "claim X can be trusted for use" for "this car", you'd get "this car can be trusted for use". What you've done is equivocate, using "reliability" differently for claims versus how it is used in all other areas. In particular using it in reference to X on one hand and in reference to the method that derived X on the other, which has nothing like a mechanical analog to help indicate that your usage is one that matches the usage of anyone else outside of your own head. > Even if there were a 50/50 chance, that would not be a useful source of information, would it? Then perhaps what you mean is: Made-up claims have a greater probability of being untrue than claims that are not made up. If that is the case are you asserting that "Any method that doesn't make up claims has a greater probability of being true than any methods that do make up claims"? > Well, they all evaluate to false, so yes? So, you think it is possible for some claim to be true and it not be likely that said claim is true? > So? According to you: The assertion of any claim that is not falsifiable is not warranted. This has no certain basis, by your definitions. As a result this means that no claim should be ignored just because it is currently considered to not be falsifiable. Another question comes to mind. Say you claim "water only boils at 150°C+ at 1 atm". You then perform a test on water at "1 atm", and it boils at 100°C. Having falsified the original claim, according to you, you can now say "it is not the case that water only boils at 150°C+ at 1 atm". After falsifying the claim "water only boils at 150°C+ at 1 atm", is the claim "it is not the case that water only boils at 150°C+ at 1 atm" falsifiable, and if so how might it be falsified? > Then I don't even understand what the point of that question is. Like, what else would our senses detect, if not what they detect? That's partly my point, they wouldn't, and the other part is to have you recognize that there is a self-evidently true claim that is not falsifiable. You can't falsify the claim "our senses have at least one way in which they are reliable". To say that you could would be to say you have the potential to reliably, with your senses, demonstrate that the claim "our senses have at least one way in which they are reliable" is false.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
  > So, you think it is possible for some claim to be true and it not be likely that said claim is true? Imagine I came to you and told you that I had determined that some bridge could bear 1632 tons, and that I had determined that by rolling dice, one for each digit. You don't know anything else about this bridge. Would you say that my claim is (a) likely to be true (b) likely to be false (c) you have no clue how likely it is to be true or false ? > This has no certain basis, by your definitions. So? I didn't claim I had a certain basis. Do you have a certain basis for any belief? And if not, why are you bringing this up? > After falsifying the claim "water only boils at 150°C+ at 1 atm", is the claim "it is not the case that water only boils at 150°C+ at 1 atm" falsifiable, and if so how might it be falsified? By demonstrating water that boils only at 150°C+ at 1 atm?! > That's partly my point, they wouldn't, and the other part is to have you recognize that there is a self-evidently true claim that is not falsifiable. You can't falsify the claim "our senses have at least one way in which they are reliable". But that isn't self-evidently true, it's simply tautologically true. "What we perceive is what we perceive". Duh? As far as we know, everything we perceive could be illusion/simulation/whatever WRT "ultimate reality", so making that claim in the sense that our senses are in any way reliable for detecting "ultimate reality" (i.e., "the programmer that wrote the simulation") is unwarranted, and there certainly is no evidence supporting such a claim. And far as "the reality we perceive" is concerned, it's a trivial, tautological statement, not some insight about the world. That statement would even be true if we didn't perceive anything. > To say that you could would be to say you have the potential to reliably, with your senses, demonstrate that the claim "our senses have at least one way in which they are reliable" is false. Which you can't because it's a logical contradiction to show that a tautological claim is false.
  - sonusario 7y ago
    > Would you say that my claim is... ? And by asking a question, you have no answer for mine? You seem to think that claims aren't true or false if we don't know whether they are true or false. What your doing is equivocating the likelihood of the method to produce true claims with whether a stated claim is likely to be true. > I didn't claim I had a certain basis. So you are not certain if religion is incompatible with science? > By demonstrating water that boils only at 150°C+ at 1 atm?! So, by your words, every falsifiable claim is not falsifiable with certainty, because any claim X that states the falsification of some falsifiable claim Y can be falsified. > As far as we know, everything we perceive could be illusion/simulation/whatever WRT "ultimate reality", so making that claim in the sense that our senses are in any way reliable for detecting "ultimate reality" (i.e., "the programmer that wrote the simulation") is unwarranted, and there certainly is no evidence supporting such a claim. How do you know this with certainty? As far as you know everything you perceive could be illusion/simulation/whatever WRT "ultimate reality", so making that claim in the sense that our senses are not in any way reliable for detecting "ultimate reality" (i.e., "the programmer that wrote the simulation") is unwarranted, and there certainly is no evidence supporting such a claim.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
> And by asking a question, you have no answer for mine? Your line of questions seemed to be missing the point, which is why I tried to make things easier by asking you how you would understand language in this context. > You seem to think that claims aren't true or false if we don't know whether they are true or false. Nope. > What your doing is equivocating the likelihood of the method to produce true claims with whether a stated claim is likely to be true. No, I am not equivocating those, those just are the same thing, and I am almost certain that you also use language in this way, even though it seems like maybe you aren't aware of it. Which is why I asked you that one simple question, to see whether you actually do. > So you are not certain if religion is incompatible with science? I won't answer any further questions about whether I am certain about something until you show that there is anything anyone could possibly be certain about. Demanding a burden of proof that you don't apply to anything else is simply destructive behaviour, not something that could possibly lead to any insight. > How do you know this with certainty? Just remove "certainly". The point is: I haven't seen any, I doubt you have seen any, I doubt anyone has seen any. If you have some, feel free to share it. > As far as you know everything you perceive could be illusion/simulation/whatever WRT "ultimate reality", so making that claim in the sense that our senses are not in any way reliable for detecting "ultimate reality" (i.e., "the programmer that wrote the simulation") is unwarranted, and there certainly is no evidence supporting such a claim. Correct. Which is why I am not making that claim.
- sonusario 7y ago
  > I won't answer any further questions about whether I am certain about something until you show that there is anything anyone could possibly be certain about. So apparently you are uncertain that you've just stated "I won't answer any further questions about whether I am certain about something until you show that there is anything anyone could possibly be certain about"... lol, wow. Haha, are you certain you won't answer any further questions about whether you are certain about something until I show that there is anything anyone could possibly be certain about? If not, are you certain that you are not certain? If so, well then now you know there is something you can possibly be certain about. If not, are you certain? > Demanding a burden of proof that you don't apply to anything else is simply destructive behaviour, not something that could possibly lead to any insight. Smh, tsk tsk. I do apply it to other things. At the moment, however, we are dealing with your "uncertain" claims, a burden which is evermore appearing to be too much for you, especially now, given that you have now revealed that you've not intended to say anything with certainty. Perhaps, for all future claims you make, it would serve us well if you included wording that indicates your uncertainty. > Just remove "certainly". If you're going to remove certainty from all of your claims, then we have reached the end of our discussion. I'm content with you not being certain of the claim "Religion is incompatible with science". You may feel that one can't be certain of anything, but it is certain that you can't be certain of that. > The point is: I haven't seen any, I doubt you have seen any, I doubt anyone has seen any. Well according to you, you are not certain that you doubt it. In addition, by your own expectations of uncertainty, you are not certain that (you are not certain that you doubt it), and, to continue, you are not certain that (you are not certain that (you are not certain that you doubt it)), and you are not certain that (you are not certain that (you are not certain that (you are not certain that you doubt it))), and so on... Oh, and if you want to replace all certainty with likelihood, as in stating that "It is likely that religion is incompatible with science" to highlight your uncertainty of the claim "Religion is compatible with science", then the claim "It is likely that religion is incompatible with science" would also be uncertain. This would result in the same infinite hierarchically regressive death spiral as above. So... have fun with that.
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
    Just to avoid that confusion: "certain" is not the same as "so incredibly sure that it would be world-shattering to discover otherwise", even though the former often is used colloquially to mean the latter. I'm pretty sure that that is some equivocation that's going on here. > I do apply it to other things. So, you are saying that there is a claim that you are absolutely certain about? > This would result in the same infinite hierarchically regressive death spiral as above. Except there is no such thing. There is nothing in not being absolutely certain about anything that prevents you from still coming to conclusions and acting on them, and in many cases at least locally successfully so. There is nothing in reality, as far as I am aware, that guarantees that you can be certain about anything. And as such, you are simply demanding that I make an unjustified claim because that claim is an assumption that you want to make, and you maybe will refuse to engage unless I make that claim. But that is not a problem that I can solve. I hold the position that absolute certainty is unjustified, and I am willing to help you understand that perspective if you are interested. You can either drop your assumption for the sake of the discussion, so you can maybe understand how my perspective makes sense, or you can insist that I should be sharing your assumption, which certainly will not allow you to understand my perspective. In particular, you may want to take another close look at the examples that you used, apparently to try and construct contradictions from my statements. What you maybe want to pay attention to is whether those are actually contradictions (that is, self-inconsistent). It seems to me that many really just demonstrate that what I said contradicts the assumption of (the need for) absolute certainty. Which I'll readily admit they do. But that is not inconsistent, because that is not an assumption that I share. As such, they are expressions of how hard you find to accept what I said, which is fair--but they do not show a problem in my argument or reasoning.
    - sonusario 7y ago
      > Just to avoid that confusion: "certain" is not the same as "so incredibly sure that it would be world-shattering to discover otherwise", even though the former often is used colloquially to mean the latter. I'm pretty sure that that is some equivocation that's going on here. I don't mean "so incredibly sure that it would be world-shattering to discover otherwise" when I say certain. I mean "Known for sure; established beyond doubt". > So, you are saying that there is a claim that you are absolutely certain about? Yes. I've already said so. Consider re-reading my previous comment in light of my response "to avoid that confusion". > There is nothing in not being absolutely certain about anything that prevents you from still coming to conclusions and acting on them, and in many cases at least locally successfully so. Agreed. Those conclusions have less basis, but our knowledge can wind up aligned with the truth without us being certain. > There is nothing in reality, as far as I am aware, that guarantees that you can be certain about anything. Then we are done with our conversation. If you can't be certain of anything, then all of logic is suspect. This flies in the face of a comment you've made previously in two ways, both regarding logic and your awareness: "Which you can't [with your senses, demonstrate that the claim "our senses have at least one way in which they are reliable" is false] because it's a logical contradiction to show that a tautological claim is false."

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
> I mean "Known for sure; established beyond doubt". OK! > Yes. I've already said so. Consider re-reading my previous comment in light of my response "to avoid that confusion". Well, possibly you have, just trying to avoid confusion. Could you give one example of such a claim? (Yes, I understand you might already have mentioned one, I just want to be sure I am not misrepresenting you.) > Agreed. Those conclusions have less basis, but our knowledge can wind up aligned with the truth without us being certain. Exactly! But note: "less basis" does not mean "no basis". Also, just asserting certainty doesn't give you any more basis, only actually having justified certainty does. The fact that you might prefer absolute certainty for the basis of (some of) your beliefs does not mean it's something you can actually have. > Then we are done with our conversation. If you can't be certain of anything, then all of logic is suspect. Well, yes, of course it is!? Are you saying that you have never made what you now consider errors in your logical thinking, where you were convinced that you came to a conclusion through correct logical reasoning and later came to the conclusion that you were wrong about that?! And if that has happened to you (I mean, it happened in this thread, so I assume you will agree that it has happened to you?), then how would you distinguish logical conclusions or methods of logical reasoning that you are certain are correct from those that you currently are mistakenly convinced are correct? And if you you can't distinguish those, how would not all of logic be suspect, at least just enough to not justify labeling it as absolutely certain? And maybe more importantly: How is that relevant to our conversation? Either we agree on some claim or argument or we don't, how does it make any difference whether either one of us is certain about it?! > This flies in the face of a comment you've made previously in two ways, both regarding logic and your awareness: I don't see how, could you explain?
- sonusario 7y ago
  > Could you give one example of such a claim? It is certain that you can't be certain of the claim "there is no thing anyone could possibly be certain about". You can't be certain "there is no thing anyone could possibly be certain about" without contradicting that claim, thus it is not possible to truthfully assert that claim in any way. Where there are no other possibilities, you have certainty. > Also, just asserting certainty doesn't give you any more basis, only actually having justified certainty does. Agreed. If you lack certainty about that though, then you think that there is a chance, however small, that just asserting certainty does give you more basis. > The fact that you might prefer absolute certainty for the basis of (some of) your beliefs does not mean it's something you can actually have. It ought to be sought out where possible, because it can actually be had. Also, if you lack certainty about that, then you think that there is a chance, however small, that the fact one might prefer absolute certainty for the basis of (some of) their beliefs does mean it's something they can actually have. > How would you distinguish logical conclusions or methods of logical reasoning that you are certain are correct from those that you currently are mistakenly convinced are correct? By distinguishing what possibilities have/haven't been ruled out. > How is that relevant to our conversation? Not knowing of any reason to think anything could be known with certainty is a non-starter for most conversation. Resisting all reasons to think anything could be known with certainty is a non-starter for any conversation. > I don't see how, could you explain? Your statement "There is nothing in reality, as far as I am aware, that guarantees that you can be certain about anything", expresses a lack of certainty in all claims, which includes tautological claims and claims of awareness, "awareness" being comparable to "senses". If you lack certainty regarding tautological claims, then you think there is a chance, however small, that tautological claims could be shown to be false. You are open to the idea, however unlikely you take it to be, of logical contradictions being true, and thus are open, even if only a little, to asserting the illogical. If you lack certainty regarding your awareness, then you think that there is a chance, however small, that there are things in reality, as far as you are aware, that guarantees that one can be certain about something.
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
    > It is certain that you can't be certain of the claim "there is no thing anyone could possibly be certain about". You can't be certain "there is no thing anyone could possibly be certain about" without contradicting that claim, thus it is not possible to truthfully assert that claim in any way. Hu? 1. People at least constantly claim that they are certain about self-contradictory things (that they themselves don't realize are/don't see as self-contradictory), so ... evidently, it is possible to be certain about that!? 2. What does truthfulness have to do with any of this? How does me being uncertain of a claim make it impossible for either the claim to be true or for me to assert it!? > Where there are no other possibilities, you have certainty. So, how did you exclude the possibility that there is a flaw in the logical reasoning that we both haven't realized yet? > Agreed. If you lack certainty about that though, then you think that there is a chance, however small, that just asserting certainty does give you more basis. So? All you seem to be saying here is "but then you can't be certain!". Yeah, duh? The fact that some reasoning conflicts with an assumption that you want to make does not invalidate the reasoning, it just means that it conflicts with that assumption. > It ought to be sought out where possible, because it can actually be had. Well, that is the claim that you are making. > Also, if you lack certainty about that, then you think that there is a chance, however small, that the fact one might prefer absolute certainty for the basis of (some of) their beliefs does mean it's something they can actually have. So? (see above) > By distinguishing what possibilities have/haven't been ruled out. And how would you distinguish those cases where you have correctly ruled out a possibility from those cases where you have mistakenly ruled out a possibility? > Not knowing of any reason to think anything could be known with certainty is a non-starter for most conversation. Why? How do claims of certainty possibly add anything to a conversation? One side makes a claim/argument, the other either agrees or doesn't. If both sides agree, that claim can be used for building further arguments on it, which, again, the other side either agrees to or doesn't. If the other side doesn't agree, you have to explain your position based on things they previously agreed to, to work out whether you can get them to agree, or to possibly revise their positions on stuff they previously agreed upon, or to possibly revise your own position to get to an agreement on a different claim. How does certainty play any role in this? Does asserting "but I am certain" ever help with convincing anyone (who obviously isn't certain of the same thing, or they wouldn't be disagreeing)? Does it add anything when you agree with someone, and then you also both say "and we are also both certain of this!"? Does it have any use if someone agrees with you on a claim, but you insist that they also agree to the claim that they are certain about that claim, or else you will act as if they didn't agree with you on the first claim either? As far as I can see, knowing anything for certain isn't just not necessary for most conversation, it's also completely useless. Like, even if you were justified in being absolutely certain on some claim, I don't see how that is of any use whatsoever for a conversation. > Resisting all reasons to think anything could be known with certainty is a non-starter for any conversation. So, if there are in fact no reasons to think otherwise, then that is a non-starter for any conversation?! > If you lack certainty regarding tautological claims, then you think there is a chance, however small, that tautological claims could be shown to be false. No, that is just you assuming certainty to demonstrate certainty, i.e., circular reasoning. Yes, if I assume that I can determine with absolute certainty that a given claim is tautological, and that I can determine with absolute certainty the correct result of all my thoughts, then ... I could determine with absolute certainty the correct result of all my thoughts. But that's just a very convoluted way to express an assumption, not a demonstration of anything. Tautologies are, by definition, true, and I agree with you on that. So what is the point of demanding that I also agree that I could not possibly be mistaken in my understanding of the definition of "tautology", that I could not possibly ever end up considering a false statement to be a tautology, that I could not possibly ever be wrongly convinced that a statement that is in fact tautological could be demonstrated to be false? Why do you require that I declare that I will not change my mind on what the common definition of "tautology" is, no matter what evidence you show me (that is: that I declare that this is "beyond doubt")? What good could possibly come from that, even if we ignore all the problems that could come from such a stance? > You are open to the idea, however unlikely you take it to be, of logical contradictions being true, and thus are open, even if only a little, to asserting the illogical. No, I am simply open to the idea that what I think are logical contradictions are in fact not. > If you lack certainty regarding your awareness, then you think that there is a chance, however small, that there are things in reality, as far as you are aware, that guarantees that one can be certain about something. So? Again and again, you make these statements that lead to contradictions with the assumption of absolute certainty ... but why would you do that if you want to convince someone who doesn't share that assumption?

sonusario 7y ago
> Like, even if you were justified in being absolutely certain on some claim, I don't see how that is of any use whatsoever for a conversation. Then what was the purpose of your demanding, "I won't answer any further questions about whether I am certain about something until you show that there is anything anyone could possibly be certain about", if being certain about some claim is of no use, even if it could be justified? === To set things in order: You claim that "Religion is incompatible with science" because, as you've claimed, they contradict in stating what is or is not warranted regarding the assertion of falsifiable claims. Your argument fails on the grounds that it has not established that religion makes non-falsifiable claims. Moreover, when I pushed you on this regarding a specific claim you provided, asking "Assuming your saying "It is not warranted" because the claim "God exists" is not falsifiable, how has it been shown that the claim "God exists" is not a falsifiable claim?", you asked: "What would you accept as falsification of the claim of the existence of the god that you believe in?", leaving it to me to establish your position. The issues with that aside, if I where to answer that question similar to the way you answered one of mine... " s> "After falsifying the claim "water only boils at 150°C+ at 1 atm", is the claim "it is not the case that water only boils at 150°C+ at 1 atm" falsifiable, and if so how might it be falsified?" z> By demonstrating water that boils only at 150°C+ at 1 atm?! " ... then I could say, "By demonstrating that God doesn't exist?!", and I could apply the same format to all questions asking how I might falsify some religions claim, which is absurd. Your argument also fails on the grounds of not having a coherent use of the term "falsifiable": You've stated that making non-falsifiable claims is unwarranted, and have also stated "it's a logical contradiction to show that a tautological claim is false". Either tautological statements contradict your claim that non-falsifiable claims are unwarranted to make or you'll need to establish that they are indistinguishable from shit just made up (this distinguishing presumably being the reason you think making non-falsifiable claims is unwarranted). By your own words, every claim asserting the falsification of a falsifiable claim is falsifiable, which defeats the purpose of calling claims falsifiable to begin with. By your words, you can't falsify a claim without any doubt that the falsification can't be falsified, effectively making all falsifiable claims non-falsifiable, a contradiction. Regarding Certainty: Without certainty, you can't potentially show that a claim is false, only that it is likely to be false, thus another collapse of your notion of "falsifiable". If there is no potential to show that a claim is false, then it is not falsifiable. === You have less basis for your claim "Religion is incompatible with science" than you have of the the claim "Some claims can be known with certainty". Are you uncertain of your own existence? Maybe uncertain in mode, but that you exist in any way at all? Do you think that the certainty of ones existence is an unwarranted assumption? To think as such is self defeating.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
  > Then what was the purpose of your demanding, "I won't answer any further questions about whether I am certain about something until you show that there is anything anyone could possibly be certain about", if being certain about some claim is of no use, even if it could be justified? I didn't ask you to be justified in being certain, I asked you to demonstrate that you are (or anyone else is) justified in being certain. Being justified seems to be useless, demonstrating that you are justified is not. > Your argument fails on the grounds that it has not established that religion makes non-falsifiable claims. Seriously? You are seriously contesting that a defining characteristic of religion is that it makes non-falsifiable claims? > [...] you asked: "What would you accept as falsification of the claim of the existence of the god that you believe in?", leaving it to me to establish your position. The fact that I am measuring the falsifiability of your position does not mean that you are establishing my position. Would you prefer if I argued against a randomly selected religious position of other people that you probably don't agree with, and will you accept me demonstrating that that position is not falsifiable as demonstration that your position is not falsifiable? > ... then I could say, "By demonstrating that God doesn't exist?!", and I could apply the same format to all questions asking how I might falsify some religions claim, which is absurd. Which just demonstrates that you don't understand what falsifiability is? What I describe is a very specific observation: A container with liquid water in it that is measured to be at a pressure of 1 atm and at a temperature of 149.9999 °C, and the temperature of the water vapor coming off of it measuring as 150 °C (or in short: water boiling only at 150 °C). That observation would falsify the claim that water does not boil only at 150 °C. What you desribe is ... nothing of the sort? You give zero criteria by which to decide whether the experiment has failed. > You've stated that making non-falsifiable claims is unwarranted, and have also stated "it's a logical contradiction to show that a tautological claim is false". Either tautological statements contradict your claim that non-falsifiable claims are unwarranted to make or you'll need to establish that they are indistinguishable from shit just made up (this distinguishing presumably being the reason you think making non-falsifiable claims is unwarranted). You are confusing "formal truths" and "real truths". > By your own words, every claim asserting the falsification of a falsifiable claim is falsifiable, which defeats the purpose of calling claims falsifiable to begin with. By your words, you can't falsify a claim without any doubt that the falsification can't be falsified, effectively making all falsifiable claims non-falsifiable, a contradiction. Is there some negation or some quantifier wrong in this? I have a hard time figuring out what that second sentence means ... > Regarding Certainty: Without certainty, you can't potentially show that a claim is false, only that it is likely to be false, thus another collapse of your notion of "falsifiable". If there is no potential to show that a claim is false, then it is not falsifiable. That's, again, only a problem resulting from your demand for certainty. Certainty is not a requirement for falsification. Falsification is not about making certain that a claim is false. Seriously, just stop assuming that anyone but you is demanding certainty for anything. All these arguments of yours boil down to "but then you can't be certain!". Yes, DUH! I have told you again and again that I do not share this assumption of yours, so, please, stop making that assumption. Either justify the claim, or work without it. If your argument only makes sense under the assumption that someone demands certainty, it is not a relevant argument for this discussion. If your argument shows that my position is inconsistent with absolute certainty, that only shows that my position is consistent in that regard. > Are you uncertain of your own existence? Maybe uncertain in mode, but that you exist in any way at all? Do you think that the certainty of ones existence is an unwarranted assumption? To think as such is self defeating. That smells like essentialism? I mean, you are aware that there are delusional people, right? Like, people who have an almost completely wrong idea about their identity? Are these people justified in being certain that they exist?

sonusario 7y ago
"Yes, DUH!" he said as though he were certain, contradicting his own position, a position he's not completely sure exists.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
  No, that is purely your invention. There is no contradiction with my own position, and there is no certainty involved, nor is certainty needed. All you are doing is that you are refusing to agree with claim A in the context of this discussion unless I agree to unrelated claim B, even though you otherwise do agree with claim A. You are simply refusing to agree that logic works unless I agree to making the assumption that I am certain of some other claims, even though you otherwise would agree that logic does work. The fact that you can willfully claim that you don't agree with something you actually do agree with unless I give in to some demand of yours is not an argument, that is just destructive behaviour. If you are unwilling to follow a logical argument for the only reason that the person making the argument does not claim certainty, that is willfully undermining the conversation, and is exclusively your responsibility to address.
  - sonusario 7y ago
    The Final nail: You agree with the following claim: The specific observation of water boiling at 125°C in 1 atm falsifies the claim "water only boils at 150°C+ in 1 atm". Since being falsifiable is your requirement for making warranted claims about reality, then, in order to be warranted, you'd need to have a specific observation that would falsify the claim "The specific observation of water boiling at 125°C in 1 atm falsifies the claim 'water only boils at 150°C+ in 1 atm'". But now the claim, that whatever observation you may describe would falsify the aforementioned, would also need to have an observation that would falsify it. Any claim that some claim is falsified by some observation will also have to have a observation that falsifies that claim. Thus leading to an infinite regression (have fun showing your position is warranted when you have to detail an unending list of observations), circular regression (we both agree circular reasoning is not reasonable), or a first claim that is not falsifiable.
  - sonusario 7y ago
    > There is no contradiction with my own position, and there is no certainty involved, nor is certainty needed. How do you know there is no certainty involved? How do you know certainty is not needed? If you are not certain, why not say "is likely" instead of "is"? ("There is likely no contradiction with my own position", "there is likely no certainty involved", "Religion is likely incompatible with science", etc.) > You are simply refusing to agree that logic works unless I agree to making the assumption that I am certain of some other claims, even though you otherwise would agree that logic does work. Logic works, your's doesn't, particularly because you are framing your conclusion using terms of certainty while also refusing to think that anything can be known with certainty. Do you have a reason for not assuming something, even your own existence, can be known with certainty? What I've gathered from your previous replies would indicate that your main reason could be phrased as "there is no way to verify that my perception matches up with any sort of 'ultimate reality'".
  - sonusario 7y ago
    More nails for your argument's proverbial coffin... ;) === > Seriously? You are seriously contesting that a defining characteristic of religion is that it makes non-falsifiable claims? "Yes, DUH!", hence the question. What indicates to you that making non-falsifiable claims is a defining characteristic of religion? > The fact that I am measuring the falsifiability of your position does not mean that you are establishing my position. So you are not relying on me to describe to you a very specific observation that I would "accept as falsification of the claim of the existence of the god that [I] believe in", in order to answer my question "How has it been shown that the claim "God exists" is not a falsifiable claim"? > Would you prefer if I argued against a randomly selected religious position of other people that you probably don't agree with, and will you accept me demonstrating that that position is not falsifiable as demonstration that your position is not falsifiable? We already selected the position "God exists". You've yet to demonstrate that it is not falsifiable. You are merely dodging the question with "It just is!"/"Because I said so!" like responses. > A container with liquid water in it that is measured to be at a pressure of 1 atm and at a temperature of 149.9999 °C, and the temperature of the water vapor coming off of it measuring as 150 °C (or in short: water boiling only at 150 °C). That observation would falsify the claim that water does not boil only at 150 °C. Measuring the temperature of the water vapor at 150 °C coming off of liquid water at 149.9999 °C doesn't falsify that claim if you haven't checked lower temperatures. If you haven't checked every temperature from -273.15 °C to 150 °C at every possible precision, then you may have missed some other temperature at which it boils. More over, if the claim was "water does not boil only at 150 °C in 1 atm" vs "150 °C+ in 1 atm", then you'd also have to check every temperature at every possible precision above 150 °C to falsify that claim. > You are confusing "formal truths" and "real truths". Is it possible to make a tautological claim about reality? > I have a hard time figuring out what that second sentence means ... If you can always potentially falsify claim A which is the falsification of claim B, then claim B always has the potential of having not actually been falsified. If a claim always has the potential of having not actually been falsified, then it is not actually falsifiable, because if it were actually falsified then there would no longer be any potential for it to be not actually falsified. For a claim to not actually be falsifiable, when it is said to be falsifiable, is a contradiction. In other words: If you can always have the potential to show that claim A is false, which is a claim that states claim B is false, then claim B always has the potential of having not actually been shown to be false. If a claim always has the potential of having not actually been shown to be false, then it cannot actually be shown to be false, because if it were actually shown to be false then there would no longer be any potential for it to have not actually been shown to be false. For a claim to not have the potential to actually be show as false, when it is said to have the potential to be show as false, is a contradiction. > That's, again, only a problem resulting from your demand for certainty. ... No, it is a problem resulting from your use of the word "is". > I mean, you are aware that there are delusional people, right? Like, people who have an almost completely wrong idea about their identity? Are these people justified in being certain that they exist? In what context could some existing person be certain that they exist and be wrong? === Since being falsifiable is your requirement for making warranted claims about reality: What specific observation can you describe that would falsify the first premise of your argument? What specific observation can you describe that would falsify the second premise of your argument? What specific observation can you describe that would falsify the conclusion of your argument? What specific observation can you describe that would falsify the claim "making non-falsifiable claims is a defining characteristic of religion"? What specific observation can you describe that would falsify the claim "the claim 'water only boils at 100 °C+ in 1 atm' is falsifiable"? What specific observation can you describe that would falsify the claim "'formal truths' are not about reality"? What specific observation can you describe that would falsify the claim "claims about reality must be falsifiable to be warranted"? What specific observation can you describe that would falsify the claim "there is no way to verify that perception matches up with any sort of 'ultimate reality'"? === Have fun!