My discussion to Banno is totally separate matter to yours, as I am only interested in clarifying Banno point in his logic at this particular stage.

But do you not see him saying my logic is wrong? I am trying to find out where he got the idea. It is good that he agrees 50% with me, but his logic has problems that he doesn't seem to see.

He quoted my ID in his post, so the Forum emailed me saying that Banno quoted me in his post, so I was replying to him. Well, he thinks my reasoning is wrong, so I was going to point out where he got wrong after hearing what he has to say about it.

I have read many definitions of free will but I don't agree with any of them. My definition of free will is a will that is free from determinants and constraints. I don't mind if no one else agrees with my definition. I don't require anyone to agree with me about anything. — Truth Seeker

If you discuss a topic under different definitions of the key concept with the others, then you will not be able to reach the agreed conclusion.

But from my own view, things which were under determinant and constraints can never be freewill. You must accept something are determined for the humans, and they can never change or decide them.

Freewill is only valid when you had choices for different options for your decisions or actions.

Go on, then. Here is the premise:

P - > Q
— Corvus
or in my parsing

(t→e)→(¬t→¬e)
— Banno

Show how that is equivalent to A↔B. — Banno

Why do you want to prove (t→e)→(¬t→¬e) is equivalent to A <-> B?

You too are missing the point here.
As you put, your conclusion Cogito is invalid is correct, but your logic seems to be missing the critical point in your reasoning.

You got explain in detail what you are exactly trying to do when you are asking (t→e)→(¬t→¬e) is equivalent to A <-> B, and I will tell you where you got it wrong.

I guess that's a possible explanation. But the meaning seems clear. To put it another way: — Janus

Please note. In the Internet truth table, P and Q has the truth values, which were given as either T or F. Hence they can make axiomatic assumptions. It is still assumptions based on the truth values given to P and Q.

But here, we are not assuming any truth values at all to P and Q. Hence we can make most realistic assumptions and assertions against the original assumption based on the reasonable inference. I hope you see my point in the proof process.

You were citing something you saw on the internet truth table, and citing that as if all proof process must follow that, or it is wrong was your claim, which was really wrong and silly.

'If I am thinking I must exist'
It follows that
'If I don't exist I am not thinking'.
It doesn't follow that
'If I not thiing I don't exist' — Janus

You seem to be just citing what is on the internet or textbook for symbolic logic truth table.
For proof process, you must apply your own reasoning to the statement you want to prove or disprove.

Anyhow it was the last attempt to make the dualist understand the core problems. As Banno put it correctly, Cogito is not logically provable. It is an intuition. It is a subjective psychological solipsistic statement.

My hypothesis is that it's a language issue. Somewhere back in time he or she mentioned he or she was not a native speaker. — Bylaw

Your hypothesis make no sense. Do you reject the standard meaning of "therefore" from the dictionaries? Symbolic logic works for all the languages in the world.

You have this wrong. The logically entailed negation of 'I think, therefore I exist' is 'I don't exist, therefore I don't think' not 'I don't think therefore I don't exist'. — Janus

Could you forward your full explanation why it is?

It's a rookie mistake you're making. — Janus

You obviously don't seem know what had been tried there for the proof. Do you even understand what logical proofing means?

It sounds like the first priority is to define what freewill is. Then you could proceed for further clarifications and discussions.

I think you can speculate that he had resentment from romantic misfortune, with some evidence. But, at least in Sickness Unto Death, he finds women of a weaker spiritual constitution than men. He definitely was a kind of... advanced sexist... he had a theory for it. — fdrake

I read K. many years ago, but haven't come across anything on sexism at all at the time of my reading K.  He is known to have broken the marriage promise to his fiancee Regina for some reason.  I am not sure what the reason for breaking the promise was.

The other philosophers who are publicly known to have been sexists are Schopenhauer and Nietzsche.  For their reason for being sexists seem to be their personal experiences and situations with the opposite sex folks?  Just guessing.

It is interesting to note that both Schopenhauer and Nietzsche were positing Will as the significant element in human values and the foundation of the mental operation and actions. Recall The World as Will and Representation and Will to Power?

Anyhow, I am not sure if the claim that K was sexist is an objective and fully accepted justified fact just from referring to some commentaries on his works or passages in his books.

From the existentialism's point of view, sexism would be the most inauthentic mode of thought, especially for a thinker like K.  He propounded the most meaningful status for a being is the lone being standing in front of God facing him directly one to one.  Discriminating or debasing the other races or sex in the system of thought of K doesn't seem to have a place in the K's system of ideas.

But your idea in the post sounds confident that K was. If so, how does sexism fit in the frame of existentialism? Can someone who are biased and prejudiced against the other people on the bases of sex or race be qualified as an existentialist? What would be the arguments on the point from the Ethics or Morality of Existentialism?

You are correct about his conclusion fitting the present. But this "I" which "is," is not the same "I" as the "I" which was nanoseconds ago thinking. The "I" is successive. Just as there isnt really a linear narrative, there are only successive nows. — ENOAH

Interesting point. I wouldn't describe Cogito as some insane moronic babble. But it is obvious that it has many rational incongruities to be classed as a logical statement. It is a subjective psychological expression at best, which reminds us to use method of doubt in all reasonings.

I meditate daily but I haven't experienced death yet. — Truth Seeker

Not even in your dreams?

Not every arrangement of matter is conscious. — Patterner

None of them are.

Do we scoff at the idea of electron shells because not every arrangement is solid? — Patterner

Not scoffing, but would like to hear the more elaborated arguments on the idea why electron shell arrangement is solid.

First of all, what do you mean by "solid"? You need to define the term intelligibly and objectively. Then you need to explain all about the electrons, electron shells and their arrangement before concluding they are solid under the definition of 'solid".

Then we can progress into further considerations and discussions, if there appear any to be compelling reasons worthwhile doing so.

why can’t the same be true of consciousness? My point is that we have observed other fundamental qualities “working together” to form a complex system, so it is not farfetched to conclude the same of consciousness.

Please let me know what you think! Any feedback / recommendations for further reading are greatly appreciated. — amber

The main problem with panpsychism is that all the non-living objects in the universe including the universe itself, refuse to respond in intelligible manner, when they were interrogated with the questions about them.

My definition of free will is a will that is free from determinants and constraints. To prove me wrong, you would have to do the following: — Truth Seeker

Isn't free will only valid when you had choice? Most things you have listed as you have done, but don't want to do them seem nothing to do with freewill.

For example, did you have option not to be born?

People die. Philosophies never die.

There is a reason 90% of all people 10 years old or more think “I think therefore I am” is a stupid argument. It’s not because of the logic; it’s because what it is trying to argue is so obvious. Everyone already knows “I am” - and they rightly think that if you needed a proof to conclude you exist you might be an idiot. — Fire Ologist

Agreed. :up:

f you think the cogito illogical and doesn’t show anything at all, you miss the point, — Fire Ologist

You still need to give some merit to Cogito. It is undeniable that it is a historical byproduct of ideas, which made start for the new philosophical tradition based on the method of doubt.

Supporting Cogito blindly as if it is a logical statement like some twidledee twiddledum folks in this thread would make them sound asinine.

However totally ignoring and rejecting Cogito as useless, and claiming, therefore it is not even worthwhile to discuss about it would make the interlocutor appear to be obtuse.

The most we can say for certain is that our perception of consciousness may be completely delusional. — Malcolm Lett

Thoughts can be delusional too.

Same thing happen in the case of science. Scientific views could be biased too. There is a whole lot of research going on in the field of philosophy of science about the biases of science. But it doesn't stop science does it. — Abhiram

:eyes: :smirk:

But I'm sure someone could come up with a better interpretation and criticism of his work than me, too. So take this uncited pile of nonsense as what it is, an athiest waxing lyrical about faith on the internet. — fdrake

Great explanation. Very informative and nicely put. :up:

Why "unfortunately"?

'cos he's sexist as hell. — fdrake

Was he? Never knew that. Any particular reason for him had been so? Or just a social trend at the time?

That is, if our intuitions and reasoning about it are worth anything. There is also likely a limit to what can be guessed if the afterlife is like our time on Earth at all, which indicates that the set of potentially accurate guesses is not infinite or can at least be made up entirely of pieces that could be predicted. — ToothyMaw

Afterlife is not that vacuous concept as some folks make out.  It depends on how much credibility we give to our reason.

If we blindly trust our reason as truly and absolutely the only criteria for knowledge, then afterlife looks and sounds like a vacuous concept. But we see the obvious limitations and restrictions in its ability of knowing the abstracts.

If we say, like Kant had done in his CPR, our reason has limitation in its ability to know, and it is not the only and truly the criteria for our knowledge, then Afterlife, Immortality and God concepts all wake up from the vacuity as a plausible possibility.

I would drop this; the nail that sticks out gets hammered down, if you catch my drift. There are plenty of other places your posts might be appreciated while you let this cool off, such as in my thread in which I responded to you. — ToothyMaw

Good advice TM. Yeah I left the thread while back, but they kept on writing to me with the distorted facts, hence I dropped back in briefly to clarify the biases and prejudices they were spreading.

I more or less had to keep repeating my points for the clarification. In the end, all I could do was, advising them to read my posts repeatedly until they get the points right. :)

Really? You must be a mathematician like I was. And one working in functional analysis. I have perhaps four books that speak of Hilbert spaces in certain chapters. — jgill

No I am not. :) I was trying to learn about it better. I kept getting more books on the topic until I find the best one. Ended up with about 10 of the books in the shelf. The last one I got was "Introduction to Hilbert Spaces with Applications" by Lokenath Debnath and Piotr Mikusinski 3rd Edition. It seems the best one so far. But the N. Young and Holland Jr. ones seem also good.

It is not good idea to converse with anyone who distorts the facts. That's all. It is just too cumbersome to keep correcting the continuing distortions. So it is OK. No one's going to lose sleep over this. You go and talk to whom you agree with. I will do the same.

You are in my To Ignore list. So don't waste your time writing to me. Thanks.

Because of your tendency keep writing posts blindly without checking what the others have written, I stopped reading your posts seriously. Just for your info.

You're demanding other people read your words on repeat until they come to agree with you, while yourself showing a general unwillingness to try to read and understand the arguments presented to you. There's a very narcisstic quality to this approach. And hypocritical, of course. — flannel jesus

You also seem to be not able to read English sentences properly. How could anyone discuss anything with you when you cannot read, but distort the others' writings to that degree? Please I would advise you to read it again. I wasn't demanding anything. I was advising. Please stop keep writing nonsense wasting your and others time. You don't seem to know difference between advising and demanding, or you cannot read words properly.

Apart from the fact you refuse to understand what material implication is, what "therefore" means, and that you have basically zero knowledge of Descartes. — Lionino

Sorry mate. There is nothing making sense in your claim. You neither seem to know anything about Descartes nor logic or metaphysics. All I can advise you is to read my previous posts repeatedly, and meditate until you see some lights of wisdom.

As such, I argue that, given certain premises in this post, we should expect an afterlife that plays closer to our ideals than the aforementioned bottomless pit of fire - or an arbitrary eternity in heaven. — ToothyMaw

Problem with Afterlife is that it is a term which cannot be perceived or verified both empirically and analytically.

Empirically, no one has seen the existence of Afterlife or anyone who is living in their Afterlife in reality.

Analytically, Afterlife is a concept to mean a life via resurrection in different heavenly world after present life in this world. 

Nothing wrong with that.  But again there is no way to check its existence visually or physically in any possible way.  It is just a word that some people talk about. Analytic deduction cannot verify existence. Only sensory perceptions and observations could verify existence. Again, no real life data for any type of verification or validation is available for the concept in anywhere in the world and the history of mankind.

Hence Afterlife should belong to the noumena as a thing-in-itself in Kantian terms?  One can only make sensible discussions on it if one accepts the possible existence of thing-in-itself and noumena in the domain of faith and religious beliefs? 

It doesn't matter, Descartes' argument is about the very act of thinking, not about what the thought is about. — Lionino

Logically, semantically, and metaphysically Cogito doesn't make sense at all. "I am thinking." loses its credibility and meaning, as soon as the utterer stopped thinking and the utterance "I think".  It is only valid when he is thinking.  When he ended the utterance, "therefore I am." has no ground or validity, because he is not thinking anymore. This is especially the case, if you accepted the nonsensical claim that "think" implies "existence".

"Thinking" also doesn't exclude the possibility of being wrong.  How many times have you thought something was the case, but found out it wasn't later on?

But in cogito, due to the absence of its content and object of cogito, it can be anything. It could have been "I think that I don't exist, therefore I am." or I think I doubt that I am, therefore I am, ...etc etc.  It doesn't rule out these nonsense contradictory possibilities of implications in the expression.

Hence it appears that your claim has no logical or theoretical ground for validity.  There is no compelling arguments in your claims at all apart from the empty blind declarations that my points are wrong.

A wonderful topic, but I suspect that there is too much here for a single thread — Banno

I agree. Logicism itself could be a huge thread itself on its own. I have 2 books by Dummett on Frege, and they are over 1000 pages. I have about 10 different books on Hilbert space only.

Granting observing and thinking are different “operations”, do you think “thinking” and “being” are different operations? — Fire Ologist

Of course they are.

Can you describe something that allows you to distinguish “thinking” from “being”? As in, “I think” distinct from “I am”? — Fire Ologist

All being has unique properties. When you exist, you are in some location i.e. a physical space on the earth a city or town or up on a hill, and you have mass and weight and shape. Your being can be described with the properties.

Thinking is a private mental event. It has nothing to do with being in any shape or form. I think, therefore I am, tells nothing meaningful at all apart from you are alive and able to make a linguistic expression. And every statement of "I think, therefore I am." is a subjective statement, which means nothing to the other minds apart from you.

Wrong.

The earliest known translation as "I am thinking, therefore I am" is from 1872 by Charles Porterfield Krauth (The Penn Monthly, Volume 3) — Lionino

How do you know it was an accurate translation? Anyway, "I am thinking" is no much different from "I think" in terms of not able to link to "I am". And thinking has objects and content. What were the content and object of "Cogito"? Je ne sais pas.

I had my dinner, therefore I was hungry. :roll:

You're absolutely right, but they does not mean the fact of the conclusion literally temporarily happened in time before the facts of the premises. Just because you write the premises first does not mean they happened first — flannel jesus

Good point. Do you have some example arguments for that?

This is the same statement as “I am thinking, therefore I am.” — Fire Ologist

No publication on Descartes says "I am thinking, therefore I am." That sounds like your imagination.
It clearly says "I think, therefore I am."
Here "think" doesn't imply anything else than "think". You claimed also in your previous posts that "think" implies "exist". That is another nonsense. If think implied existence, then Descartes didn't have to say "I exist."

He could just have said "I think.". Saying anything more than that would be superfluous babble.
But Descartes weren't that daft. He said "I think, therefore I am." which means that he thinks that "think" doesn't imply "existence".

Therefore it can be concluded that "I think, therefore I am." is logically unsound, if not false statement.

You could say it is a valid statement. But false statements can be valid, if you marry them up with the matching premises.

You see then it marks conclusion. From the fact that I think I can conclude that I am. — Lionino

Conclusion is always consequent of the premises. You never conclude something, then list premises afterwards. Or like ByLaw suggested, you can never conclude something at the same time telling the premises. It is a temporal logical impossibility.

You keep missing the point, which is an observation of something existing, namely the observer in the act of observing, or simply “observing” is. — Fire Ologist

Observation and thinking are totally different mental operations. You are mixing the two, and it seems the source of your confusion.

No one is saying “I am, therefore I think.” — Fire Ologist

I do. I am saying it. I think it is a more meaningful statement than "I think, therefore I am."

Saying "I think, therefore I am." is like saying "I am tipsy, therefore I drank." or "I died, therefore I am living."

I am therefore I think, is just saying, I exist, therefore I think. Without me existing, I cannot think.