Therefore a ham sandwich is better than heavenly bliss? — Pfhorrest

Depends how you define ham sandwich and heavenly bliss. If heavenly bliss involves never getting to the washroom, because it's such a dirty, unholy thing, then yes, ham sammich is better than all eternity in bliss without a piss.

Asking such a question is indicative of perceptual consideration. My choice in verbiage of stating “Your view...” does possess a nature of linearity. As such, the confusion I perceive you had experienced was understandable. — JackBRotten

Ouch.

The laws of probability allows us to see that the "causation chain" must be controlled by an external source that is able to rig the outcome. — TheQuestioner

The laws of probability compares, as a ratio, what the outcome is, related to what the expectation of the outcome is.

There is no probabiliy of causation chain. Or it is equal to 100%. It only appears as a faint probability becasue humans' predictive abilities are limited. If you flip a coin, you don't know if it will come down as heads or tails; but the moment you start the flip, then air resistence, coin weight and velocity, turning speed of it or rotational speed, and the difference in height beteen your fingers that flip the coin and where it will land, and how bouncy this surface is, all considered precisely and with a zero margin of error determine which side will come up. But to humans it's unknown. But only because we are incapable of taking all these factors and find their proper affect on the coin. However, our inability does not affect the coin; it only affects our chance of getting it right whether it will be heads or tials.

In the case of reality, there are an incredibly large numbers of movemets affected by causes. These are all unchangeable, they are all set. Human mind can't fathom their complexity. So it is ONLY TO THE HUMAN MIND THAT THINGS HAVE A LOW CHANCE OF HAPPENING THE WAY THEY DO. To the things, it is the only way they can happen, and at a hundred percent certainty, the things that happen to them.

So your argument is invalid in this assumption and statement, that the laws of probability allows us to see that the causation chain must be controlled by an external source. That is simply not true, when you think of it.

I don't know why he misrepresented the specific questions I was asking in such a ridiculous and demeaning way — Gregory

It is not to be our worry why he does what he does. Let him be and don't let him negatively influence you. He is an autonomous human being, and we must not have the pretence to claim we can, should or must change him. Just don't let his haughtiness bring you down, in fact, don't even read his posts.

Other sites have functions that hide any user's posts from your sight on the site if you choose. This site does not.

I guess it's his privilege, as it is our privilege to behave any way we want. I don't like him at all, but I guess he figures (no knowledge claimed, I'm not him, I don't know his true motivation) that he is not on a popularity contest. In a way he has the right, but it is really demeaning to other users. He sucks up to the mods big time though, I noticed. He is not of strong moral character in my opinion, but that is nothing else but my own opinion. Nobody should quote me on that, because my opinion is not evidence of his character.

ayy.

If your will is determined by conscious, emotional and rational influences, then your decisions are freely chosen. — Wayfarer

Is it not your will that makes you decisions, but something else? That is bizarre.
You state that your will is determined.
But your choices are not determined.
So what determines your choices?

I propose it is that part of me which is my will that determines my wilful choices.

What is your view on that?

But that is not an argument AGAINST free will. If your will is determined by conscious, emotional and rational influences, then your decisions are freely chosen. — Wayfarer

you're right Why then did I say this? It was simply posted to help you to realize that rational thoght also influences the will, free or not. You specifically denied that in your post, so that's why this part in my post.

In response to the OP: human nature is manifold, and that is why it appears to be a subject of philosophy: something that humans can't grasp yet, they leave it to be argued by the philosophers. In one way, philosophy is pre-science of the knowledge science has no basis to study with.

But human nature has walked across the floor, so to speak. Pscyhology is the major science that deals with human nature, and secondly, we discovered the extreme importance of mutations and gene theory in the formation of individual's human nature. It is not vogue any more to talk about human nature among philosophers, because there is real, hard evidence out there that describes it supported by more evidence than what philosophy needs, and enough evidence to satisfy the validity of scientific scrutiny.

See if you can spot the implicit contradiction in this paragraph. — Wayfarer

The biological thinkers? You mean that all others are also biological thinkers, all philosophers, etc.? Becasue they are thinkers based on a biological system or built?

You will continue to believe as those unconscious determinants dictate, regardless of anything that could be said; — Wayfarer

You'd be right except that conscious, emotional and rational influences also affect free will, not only subcounscious, unconscious ones.

So debate is not futile, because it has the potential to change people's opinions.

That it has not presented in forum discussions that anyone changed their minds or philosophy or religion, should not fool the observer. Many discussions here enticed me to new thoughts, to new insights. Yes, not one incited me to do a complete turn-about; but there were changes iand development in my understanding of the world, people and myself, that were helped by the intellectual input of others in the discussions that affected me in ways to develop new thoughts.

In other word: the OP simply had a choice, which he had worked out rather skillfully: "Either I believe in God, or in Free Will, but I can't believe in both when I look at today's world, and the chances humankind, the remerkable dolts that we are, had in my opinion to develop it. So given that reality is real, I choose that God exists and free will does not."

I believe god does not, and free will does not.

Some believe god does, and free will does.

Some believe that god does not, but free will does.

Yet they all believe that reality is what it is.That is the one, and the only constant that does not change in the world view of poeple, no matter what philosophy they subscribe to.

This is a powerful thing, a peculiar thing, a fascinating thing, because basically the least likely scenario is that reality is what we experience.

There is, however some value for me in the view of the OP.

If humans had free will, in the sense of classical philosophy, then the causation chain would have been broken at several spots.

This would still culminate in today's state of the world, because the aberrations outside of caused causation would still have a caused effect; the origin of the causing force is random, as the function of free will, but the caused effect would never be retroactively changed, and as there is only one flow of reality of the entire existence, it is clear that free will is not a factor that needed to be avoided to arrive at today's state of the world.

This assumes that the master plan view of how the world became to be as it is today is not valid.

Aside from all arguments presented, without making a choice who is right and who is wrong, and without the assumption of a master plan or with the assumption of it, there is one thing sure: the way things happened.

It is only our perception and inability to process huge number of calculations of data that makes us think that it was a precise plan with a very narrow or non-existent margin of error that precipitated world events, and that the chain would have had a very, very small chance of culminating in today's state of the world should it left be to develop on its own.

I think, instead, that it was causation from moment-to-moment in the history of the world (not just human and not just biological history) which culiminated in today's world, and it had no chance of becoming different, because the causation process at any instant was caused by the immediately preceding caused processes.

In other words, there could have been only one chain of events of reality, because the causational chain determined this.

Another, simpler, but harder to see proof of no aberration from the historical chain of events is that there is only one reality and one history of reality. If there were chances of changing the chain to some other chain, then they did not happen, because they were not there, as reality in our experience does not happen in more than one flow.

A third, even simpler and extremely easily seen proof is that of the OP: god caused this event of chaining events, and he oversaw it, and righted the pieces' movements if they were in the danger of going astray and fouling the plan with their free will.

I don't buy this last explanation, but apparently many people do.

Since this thread has slowed down, — Gregory

Maybe we need to drop an apple on it to make it accelerate.

Seriously speaking, yes, when you drop the apple, it accelerates toward the Earth, and he earth accelates toward the apple, and upon impact they both stop movement caused by this drop.

You are also right in saying that the Earth would not move if two apples of the same size and mass were dropped from equal distances form the centre of the Earth, at opposite sides of the Earth. South pole, North pole, will do just as well as any other two opposite sides.

You must realize, however, that when you pick up an apple from the ground and you lift it up, then you not only distance the apple from the centre of gravity of the Earth-apple mass, but you also move the Earth away not just form the apple, but from the same centre as well. Then when you drop the apple, and it hits the ground at the same spot where it lay before you picked it up, the Earth moves toward the apple, the apple moves toward the Earth, and they both stop movement upon impact.

One more fascinating fact for you: there is a centre of gravity in the apple-Earth system. The initial stage is that the apple lies on the ground. If you lift it up, it moves the apple and the Earth in relation to the centre of gravity of their system. If you throw the apple at escape velocity toward the sky, the apple and the Earth will constantly be moving away from each other for ever, and also from their common centre of gravity. But if you took note of the centre of gravity between the Earth and the apple, it will never move as long as the only things that move in the system are only the Earth and the apple. Whether the apple is lying on the ground, or falls, or is lifted, or speeds away at escape velocity, the centre of gravity of the system of Earth and the apple remains in the same spot.

This is what @Banno in his haughty and condescending way said you should know when he suggested a basic grounding in physics literacy... he actually called it physical literacy, which means a bit different, but we won't tell him that, will we.

Actually, after blasting @Noble Dust I gave myself to thinking. Maybe I am and have been looking at this issue too dogmatically. It dawned on me that when the phrase was first coined, people lived in slave-keeping societies. So there were qutie a huge number of the population that did not have freedom. This somehow translated into the common vocabulary as people who were not slaves, who were free, could carry out their will freely, there were less, much fewer restrictions on willing something and achieving it than the restrictions the slaves faced when they willed something.

The will is not free, @Echarmion, like you said, of causation; it is free, however, when it is possessed by a person who can carry out the dictates of his own will.

Never thought of it that way before.

So at worst, "free will" is a misnomer, but if we look at the original milieu in which the phrase was coined, that is, in biblical times, we must see that it is a composite expression not able to stand up to true scrutiny for its actual literal meaning in philosophical terms, but as part of a vernacular of some past ages, it makes perfect sense.

1.Start. Nothing as in no propositions have been stated
2. P stated
3. ~P stated.
4. P & ~P stated. P cancels ~P and ~P cancels P. Result = No proposition left. Back to 1. — TheMadFool

thank you.

I think it came to focus here:

I'm not talking about contradictions in the context of arguments. I'm investigating the import of propositions and their negations, specifically that to state a propositions P, then to deny it, ~P, amounts to not stating P [return to the starting point]. — TheMadFool

I still have questions that need to be clarified.

(1) I state a proposition P.
(2) Then I state ~P.
(3) which amounts to denying P.
(4) this necessarily concludes in not having stated P.

Questions:
A. Is (2) equivalent to (3)?
B. Is P true, or not true?
C. By denying P, do you mean to say that you can prove that P is false?
D. What precisely do you mean by saying "I deny P"?
E. Your stating P, then later denying it: is it a chronological order of your chaning opinion of P, which is independent of the actual truth or falsehood of P, or
F. is it a logical order of progression, in which you give validation why ~P should be held as truth, and not P should be held as true?

You see, I am having problems. Also, you say you go back to the starting point... then you say the starting point is nothing, but your starting point is P.

This is all unclear, and untouchable because it's basically senseless. Sorry, not an opinion on you or on your abilities, but a judgment made only on this... erm... on this... I don't even know what to call it. Series of related thoughts?

NEW ADDITION:

Did you add this to your previous post with a bit of a delay? Because it states precisely what I stated (almost), it is similar enough in meaning so that I would not have made my argument here if I had seen it and read it.

Now that I realize it, P & ~P, because they cancel each other doesn't amount to a proposition. A contradiction essentially means the person who utters/writes it isn't saying anything at all. If so, any other proposition wouldn't be constrained by the necessity of consistency as there's no proposition in the first place to be consistent with. This is why anything follows from a contradiction keeping in mind that what doesn't follow from a certain proposition is predicated on a resulting inconsistency. — TheMadFool

That means, that you already preemptively answered my objections, and you and I came to an agreement. No further answer is required from you in this matter. Thanks.

I honestly seek forgiveness from you and extend an apology for the little psychoanalysis I have attempted. This was uncalled for on my part, and I apologize, please forgive me that.

Keeping an eye on trying not to repeat the mistake of psychoanalizing you, which I am obviously not qualified to do, and even if I were, it would be out of place; I will say this much: your not seeing the house example as your moving the goal posts, and your not seeing the difference between "difference" and "distinction", is not explained by your most recent objections why you should not see them.

I have explained my objections, and your above most recent demand for more explanations, supported by repeated, and not new objections, which objections I have disarmed with my explnations, and which contain no new information to which I need to respond, since my response would be the same as before, since your objections are not new but repeated old objections.

This could conceivably go on forever: I would need to constantly repeat my objections to your objections, and you would yet again repeat the same objections, without any new information contained in your objections.

Now here's a bit of a psychoanalysis, and please forgive me, because I will mention a feature of your mind, only one feature, without the mentioning of it I can't make my point:

I learned by reading your posts that you are one of the smartest original thinkers on this board, with keen insight, and with a sharp mind.

Psychoanalysis ended. This above sentence is not a false compliment to disarm you or to cajole you into weakness. You would be too smart for that, anyway. This was my true opinion, without any peppering with false adoration due to ulterior motives. This opinion stands, for the future as much as for the past and present. Even if we don't come to an agreement on the issue of the difference between difference and distinction.

I can't reconcile why a person who thinks so well, can't see the point in my explanation and why they insist on the opposite of my opinion.

This I could explain only with further psychoanalysis, which I naturally refrain from doing here on the forum... it will stay a private opinion in my head, because opinions should be stated only on philosophical topics, not on the state of the mind of other users. You are right about that, and I hope you can forgive me the psychoanalysis inlcuded in this post.

Of your own free will, presumably. Not because anything made you come back. — Wayfarer

If you can't figure out on your own any causal explanations to guide my will to do this, then there is no way anyone else can explain it to you, either. Therefore I shan't start, and that I shant, shan't mean that I am dismissive of your opinion or disrespectful of it; it just means that I just don't see enough common ground on which to build an argument of our differences.

I must add, as a guide if you Wayfarer, wish to start to mind-experiment on your own, why my will would guide me to come back to this without it needing to be free: will is guided by unfulfilled needs, and it can learn patterns and behave in patterns that guide it, even at times when the influences that taught it that behaviour are not even present. I am saying will is not a stranger to conditioned response.

1. The mutually contradictory nature of humanity, treated as a super-organism, means that opposing, antagonistic likes or dislikes cancel each other and what we're left with is an entity that has no preferences and thus must, in that sense, be free

2. Humanity, again as a whole, a super-organism, being capable of having preferences that are opposite in quality must mean that it's free for none of these preferences seem to exert a dominating influence, which if false would've meant that humanity is just another, though bigger, version of the individual with predelictions that it can't resist or counter but must be slaves to. — TheMadFool

This is also a very nicely built thought, I like it very much. (I spent some time on facebook recently, for the first time in my life, hence the use and needing to use the "like" feature.)

Your explanation culminates in how this huge organism, made of humans, with null vector preferences, has freedom from preferences... but I tend to think that "having freedom from preferences" is closer to "having no preferences" than to, and is different from, "having freedom of preferences".

In other words: the component humans inside the giant have individual preferences, but the giant itself is free from preferences. It has no preferences. However, can we safely say it has freedom of preferences? after all, its tiny compnent parts will scream and complain if they don't get their choice of preferences.

Yes, that's an interesting thing: how will the giant be affected for its preference, if the components do not get theirs?

Do the components influence the mental and emotional balance of the giant?

Does the giant have any mental powers or emotional life, in the first place?

I am not philosophising in the sense of proof/disproof of propositions; I am now at this point not philosophising in the sense of stating propositions; I am playing, instead, a logical game, the parameters of which are not even fully established. The game rules are not clear yet of this game, either, but I hope that everything will fall into place if we play the game right, the game of building and examining and finding out the qualities of the model of the giant made of a myriad of tiny component humans.

Yes, this is digression, and perhaps TheMadFool could please start a thread with this idea, if we were to be pedantic about off topic digressions in this thread of mine. TheMadFool, that would make a fascinating thread, and with a little luck and with disciplined respect by the participant posters perhaps it could go to places. I mean this, I hope that's obvious from my enthusiasm.

1. Free will, if a causal explanation is what's required to understand it, can't be understood

2. We need, perhaps there's that person out there with an IQ that's off the charts, a new species of explanations, acausal explanations — TheMadFool

This is brilliant, TMF! I like this. And I think we found that person already, s/he's joined this thread and I so rudely dismissed him or her! Noble Dust was the person who is qualified to find an acausal explanation, and s/he probably did and I was too blind to see that.

I'll read your response and reply at another time; my brain still hurts from absorbing the replies from Noble Dust. I need to take a breather. Will come back later, sorry.

No, it's not my preference that "free of" is negative and "free to" is positive; it's just grammatically correct. — Noble Dust

Jesus the Lord Christ. This is going from nowhere to nothing. Please don't do this to me, Oh Lord.

Noble Dust, I am sorry, but the difference in our understanding of what grammar is, what sentiments are, and how personal preferences are a different concept from philosophical opinions, that I am incapable of continuing the discussion with you. Please feel free to continue to contribute to this topic, but please don't expect replies from me.

"Free of" is negative; "free to" is positive. "Free" is by nature a positive concept. — Noble Dust

These are descriptions of your own sentiments that you attach to words and concepts. That is nice. But it can't be disagreed with, so there you go, now we know what you like and think is positive, and what you don't like.

Beyond that there is no value to your statement. Your own private sentiments are of little concern to the interest of philosophy. You are not stating an agreement disagreement with any proposition; you are not making a point; you are not making a stand, and you don't supply any proof of anything. You just state, innociently and kindly, what you like and what you don't like. This is interesting to some, maybe, but it has, pardon me, and please forgive me for saying this, nothing to do with philosophy.

I like ice cream. I really do. I am not lying, this is the honest truth. What can you do with that as a philosopher, Noble Dust?

You like the expression "free to" and you don't like the expression "free of". What do you think i can do with that as a philosopher, Noble Dust?

Well, the question is a bit ambivalent. If I see a house, I see a house, so the image is in my mind (in my head) and outside. There is no difference.
— god must be atheist

What do you mean there is no difference? Close your eyes and paint the house red. You can do it. Open your eyes and paint the house you are seeing green in red. You can't. — David Mo

You are adding a whole bunch of EXTRENOUS qualifiers. Yes, the two images CAN be made different; but there are instances when they are not different. Whereas you deny that they are the same, under ANY circumstances.

Well there are circumstances when they are the same. I am not denying that they can't be different; but that that was not your proposition. Here you keep moving the goal posts, so to speak, David Mo. You are a clear thinker and a very smart person, and you ough to know that I catch tricks in arguments like that almost immediately on the spot.

I think it would be easier for your to admit I am right, but that takes an ego hurdle, I admit. I can't require that from you, as I don't know you and thus I am not convinced you are capable of that. Why ask for the impossible, eh? Do as you wish, but please don't employ ill logic or fallacies; let's keep this discussion clean and sportsmanlike.

To be honest, I never expected you to move goal posts, or to make logically illegal references that connect two unrelated propostions, like you did in our discussion on what it is that constitutes the difference between "difference" and "distinciton".

distinction: a difference between two similar things — David Mo

I do not accept this definition. It is incomplete. if you use this definition, you throw away the difference between "difference" and "distinction". Difference can be denoted quanti- and qualitatively. The difference could be that something is more green, heavier, a number, or a measurement. Distinction is a difference which carries the nuance meaning that the difference can't be described quali- or quantitatively. It means there is a difference, but it defies the description of difference.

While my definition does NOT contradict your definition, it is more complete, it is true, and is not partial, and therefore my definition ought to be used, not yours which you got from Cambridge.

Some more examples to claim that my definition is better:

The distinction between 5 and 8 is 3.

The the two houses have a distinction in the hue of green they are painted.

The distiniction between David Mo and me is that we disagree on the meaning of distinciton.

-----------------

In the above three examples, the word "distinction" does not fit, it is not a proper way to use it. But if you put "difference" in the place of the imporperly used word "distinction", then the sentences will read normally.

This ought to prove to you that the two words are not equivalent; there is more than just idiomatic or traditional differences in usage; you ought to see that there is a difference in meaning between the two.

I think legal rights--rights dependent on law--are the only rights. So, I think the "right to property" exists only to the extent recognized by law. But, I'm not addressing whether or not rights exist independent of the law (i.e., that there are rights with which we're endowed by God or nature or whatever).

I think the belief that such rights exist has its basis in self-interest and, Ayn Rand and others notwithstanding, think that self-interest is not a virtue, and isn't a basis on which moral conduct should be determined or judged. The fact that all are entitled to such rights makes no difference as far as I'm concerned. — Ciceronianus the White

Now, this I understand. This makes sense, and I fully agree with it.

I just wish to add that while you may be right in saying that greed is not a virtue, I wish to say that it is at times a valid survival tool, and an evolutionary advantage.

Okay, that's different. So in what way is it wrong to frame the question? A direct and logical criticism is something I can deal with, in which you describe your proposition unambiguously and in a positively full way, so it can be understood why and what your objections are to frame the question the way it is framed.

I welcome you to add a precise and comprehensive (i.e. something that makes sense) description of your thoughts, why, and how the question in the OP is a wrongly framed question. Please DO NOT supply quizzical answers, or questions. Make positive statements that precisely reflect and communicate your objections.

Thank you very much.

If you are incapable of doing that, I can't answer your objections. Sorry, but I am not going to second-guess quizzical posts and try to figure out what they mean, when meaning is lacking in posts or when meaning is conveyed in the form of quesitons.

I'm not talking about contradictions in the context of arguments. I'm investigating the import of propositions and their negations, specifically that to state a propositions P, then to deny it, ~P, amounts to not stating P [return to the starting point]. — TheMadFool

The starting point of WHAT? It has to be a starting point of something or other, which you haven't named. I can't put words in your mouth. Please state the starting point and state also this is a starting point of what. Thanks.

What about free to? — Noble Dust

That's a different quesion, requiring a different answer. I wish to have the discussion on this thread to focus and deal with the "free of" aspect, and that only. Sorry, not trying to be negative, but wishing to keep the focus on the OP.

I wasn’t aware philosophy possessed legitimacy. Exactly how much legitimacy can a field possess when all it does is question everything around it? Since when did a question require legitimacy? — JackBRotten

Let's for a moment accept that philosophy possesses no legitimacy. Then the question "Does philosophy possess legitimacy" can't be answered philosophically without creating a paradox.

Therefore the question loses legitimacy, because a negative answer to it (no it does not) renders the anwer illegitimate too, which renders the question regitimate, which renders the answer legitimate, which renders the question illegitimate... a vicious paradox.

So the only reasonable answer that avoids chaos and disorder is to answer the quesiton "does philosophy possess legitimacy" is yes.

“The legitimacy of philosophy (where it isn't just science in disguise) is one of mankind's greatest delusions.” — JackBRotten

This I contest. Philosophy is not a madman's phantasm, and it is not a sane person's misinterpretation of reality. Philosophy is not delusion, although it does not provenly grasp reality. It is not delusion, but flight of fancy, a creative game of playing with puzzle pieces of reality and putting the puzzle together which can create an infinite valid varieties of answers on reality, which are nevertheless not proven. This is not delusion. You delude yourself if you believe this is delusion.

The statement “The legitimacy of philosophy (where it isn't just science in disguise) is one of mankind's greatest delusions.” is not only negative and reflects negativism and pessimistic naysaying, it is also untrue.

Exactly how much legitimacy can a field possess when all it does is question everything around it? — JackBRotten

What you propose is not the only funcion of philosophy. You are cherry-picking. To condemn a field because of one aspect of it, and because of a false claim that that one aspect encompasses the entire field, whereas it does not, is a logical fallacy. It resembles a Strawman argument, but it must be a named subset of the Strawman.

You need to accelerate first to get to free fall velocity. Your inner ear detects acceleration. — EricH

Free fall is not a velocity. It is an acceleration where the gravitational force acts on your mass, and your mass inertia provides the counter force to the gravity that causes acceleration.

Good point. However, should ectoplasm be detected and analyzed in a laboratory your perspective could have merit. :chin: — jgill

I am sorry, jgill, I don't understand your objection... mainly because you did not support it with well-researched quotation from the Internet, which prove of course nothing, but look very important and pompous. Without those I am like a lost child in a desert when it comes to understanding opinions.

How did you get those medieval notions from my definitions of Meta-Physics? I suspect that's your definition, and you are ignoring mine. — Gnomon

Not at all. Your initial defintion of metaphysics is this:

Meta-physics refers to the things we conceive with the eye of the mind. — Gnomon

You wrote this. Your definition. Your words. Verbatim. Please don't deny this, because even the reference is there that it was penned by you.

I assert that this definition includes both quantum mechanics and the reason and rationale behind witch burning. I proved it. Now it's your turn to prove I made a mistake in the proof.

To wit, Gnomon, for a long time you were hailing my support that your definition is valid, as definitions go, You said there is nothing wrong with going away from customary defintiions when a philosopher defines a term. You were happy and revelled in the fact that your definition was proven to include quantum mechanics.

But now you are protesting like an obstreperous child to the claim that your definition includes witch burning as well.

It is not a question of protesting or denying. Your definition includes that (Read your own definition if you don't believe me.)

You are welcome now to desing a new definition, if you are willing to abandon this earlier defintion.

Please be careful how you word it. I am awaiting with interest how you will word it. You are a smart person, there is nothing stopping you from writing a good definition. I hope you agree with this opinion.

Why is the official (logical) explanation for why contradictions are prohibited (ex falso quodlibet) different? — TheMadFool

They are different because you made several mistakes in the structuring of your original post. I pointed the mistakes out in my immediately preceding series of posts before this one.

Now, contradictions in classical logic (categorical, sentential and predicate logic) are prohibited - they're a big no-no - but, to my utter surprise, not for the reasons I outlined above but, as I've been led to believe, because allowing them makes it possible to prove every conceivable statement true: Principle Of Explosion/Ex Falso Quodlibet. — TheMadFool

Contradictions in classical logic are allowed as conclusions. They are used to prove a proposition false. It's called recuctio ad absurdum... if you can show that a proposition is contradictory to itself, then it is absurd, and therefore the proposotion is not valid, it is false.

Contradictions, as they appear to me and as I've delineated above, seem to be simply the act of both affirming and denying a proposition - it basically returns the logical cursor back to its starting point — TheMadFool

The starting point of a proof or of an argument is never a contradiction. And a contradicion is never a starting point.

I have never seen an argument to start, "Peter is not Peter." Or with "Given the time allotted to finish the project, we can finish the project if and only if we can't finish the project."

You are Right!!!!
Got it the wrong way r/R\round !!!
................................... :sad:
..................................r\R/r

It is NOT math that is a Duality.
Math is a MULTIVERSE : a Translation Matrix just like the mIrroR !!

Thank You 1. Thank You 2. Thank You 3..d/D\d 4? 5? 6?............ISBN 978-0-521-54266-1 Paperback.
.................................................................... :cool: ......c|C|change-g|G|g+s|S|stability = r-/|\R\|/+reality?
..................................................................d\D/d................................Diameter+denSTitY-Balance+?
The p/P\product...................................o-Form+function............RealDiference AND PotentialdifferenZes.

BECAUSE the only options open to ANY PHYSICAL ENTITY are:
Move-back+forth in Space : Transition up /OR\ down in energy.

Origin: Mundells roundabout WGC. 2002. Source UoH = MCY+CAY-g\|/G/|\+g-?x+jgill
Does this ALL make sense to you?

It does to me NOW . thAnks . thAnks . thAnks

"Third time pays forALL" ???― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit........ISBN: MY-bookshelf+???

IF you have the time I have a further Question, a Consider:ation and a st o rY of WHY that MAY explain the Working's of a s/S\single 3d|D|duality-electro/Mechanical\entity I inhabit+am-An EternalPart of................... ..................? — Chris1952Engineer

For your information only, Engineer1952, this is complete nonsense to your readers. You need to force yourself to learn to communicate more meaningfully to humanity other than yourself.

Yes, you're back on track in my books. Differences don't take a man off the track. Not recognizing differences or similarities does. You are okay.

I was really taken aback by your random use of capitals and bold face. That was disturbing to see. You tried, I believe, to shortcut description; unfortunately your shortcuts that replaced longhand explanations are only meaningful to you. They have no interpersonal, only intrapersonal communicative value.

2) Don't you see a difference (or distinction) between something that only happens in your head and something that exists outside it? — David Mo

Well, the question is a bit ambivalent. If I see a house, I see a house, so the image is in my mind (in my head) and outside. There is no difference.

But if I see a house, and I think I should eat lunch, then there is a huge difference between what I see and what happens only in my head.

The question begs for context, but I'll be damned if I wade through TheMadFool's posts trying to find a particular needle among many in a haystack.

Jey, I just had a deja vous experience. "Trying to find a particular needle in a haystack" is an expression I heard in my twenties and was incapable of properly parse it to understand it. I was a very disturbed young man. I remember I agonized over what it could mean. I was mentally and emotionally challenged at the time. "what do you mean particular needle? One specific needle, and if yes, what would it be that made the needle specific, since for all intents and purposes there is no discernible difference between needles? And if there are many needles, wouldn't that alone increase my chances of finding one needle of them? And would that one needle be the particular needle I needed, or a different one, and how would I know whether it was the real McCoy or not?"---- These are quasi-rational thoughts, because they make sense. Their only fault is the incapabality of the thinker to think conceptually and metaphorically. But there were other thoughts, too, that were not rational, but muddled and unclear, which i can't reproduce, because i can't remember them, and I can't remember them because now I can only think in what I believe are logical and reasonable ways.

How does a difference differ from a distinction? — David Mo

This is not coming from a dicitonary, but from my own analysis of how I use and how I've ever seen used these two words: distinciton and difference.

A difference can be named. It can sometimes be measured. "The difference between Peter and Paul is that their names end in letters that are not the same." "The difference between Peter and Paul is that one is taller than the other." "The difference between 5 and 8 is 2." (Woke you up dint it.)

A distinction is a difference that is not measurable or definable. "Peter finished his dissertation with distinciton." (The event or quality that made him outstanding is not revealed, and can't be inferred from this utterance.) "Our guests of distinciton are Peter and Paul." (No idea why they are different form us, clue is not given; they are just named as different, but no amount of thinking will yield results as to what it is that make them are diffferent.)

A distinction means also that the difference is honourable, that the difference renders the different person not only different in laterally valuable ways, but different in a ranking of some scale from lower to higher ranks.

Truly I tell you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, — Nikolas

This is a first occurrance of naming size of faith by volume. A person has a faith the size of a mustard seed. The other person has faith of a bucket of water. A third person has the faith of a couple of D-Cups. yet another man has the faith of the Cromaides Supernova.

If you think this is stupid, then the only other interpretation (linguistically valid), is that mustard seeds themselves have faith. Size is not given in this instant, but mustard seeds are potentially capable of moving mountains, and luckly they don't because we haven't taught them how to speak. Once a mustard seed acquires language skills, with its faith it can move mountains with just a few words. Google maps would be exhausted constantly rubbing out mountains from the maps and putting them somewhere else where the mustard seed says it must go. Would be a veritable programming nightmare. But it would be not impossible, and chances are Google would hire enough programmers to adapt to this changing world.