-My argument is too complex to post - read this book to understand.

-I read the book. It was a bad argument.

-Why is that?

-Too complex to explain here. Read the book. — Qmeri

I like this. "Here's looking at you, kid." It is glib, clever, and wastes no time. It uses the same weaponry as the offender -- I called the offender "offender" because I do get offended by source-mentioning and concurrent and later avoidance of para-small-phrasing the topic of the sources.

This shows that empirical evidence and it truth claim is simply decided by your personal opinion. This is not rational. — Sherbert

I hedging my bets. That is rational. I use rational methods to arrive at what I believe and what I don't. The outcome may be true or false, but it is approximating the truth as I see it. How else do you think is a better approach?

But if a well-thought-out rational opinion is not rational, then what is? -- Please note: I've been away for some time from this thread, so I must do some re-reading of it.

Thank you.

It seems, then, that you
vehemently oppose, and find deplorable.
— god must be atheist
not just humanity, but the human condition. That's neither reasonable nor balanced. — tim wood

You win, Tim Wood. Let's hate each other, beat each other up on the street, rape each other's wives and daughters, because according to you this is the human condition that we ought not to fight.

I have had enough of you, and of your mindless babble, of your unthinking opinions. I am so sorry.

This is the "guilt" I am talking about. I used the word "guilt" becuase in Greta's imagination the previous generations shouldn't have squandered non-renewable resources and that she blames them for. — god must be atheist

This is what I corrected my script to. Please wait a few minutes to reply to my comments, because I edit my comments after I have written them. This was not the first and not the last time that I edit my posts.

Because it seems to me she is making a contribution, and about the best that she, or anyone like her, can make. — tim wood

No she is not, Young Grasshopper. She is trying to find a scape goat; she is inciting anger; she is segregating a group or trying to find one to segregate, to take her anger out on. THIS IS NOT HELPFUL, AND SHE IS NOT HELPING THE SITUATION, SHE IS ONLY BUILDING HATRED AND DISSENT.

Unfortunately you are right in saying she is doing the same thing in this aspect as everyone else. Hatred. Hatred. Hatred. That's what everyone feels. And they want to take it out on a group that they will blame, that they will find guilty.

And why is she not helping the situation? because the situation is NOT EASY TO HELP. It is a headache, and a problem of biblical proportions. It will take a while before mankind finds a solution. But inciting hatred and freely venting anger is not leading to a solution at all, it is not helpful at all.

We all wear clothes, we all go to school, we all watch tv or computer, we all use telephone, public transportation, we all heat our rooms when it's cold, we all buy groceries in the grocery stores that have been grown, harvested and processed by the aid of machines and they have been transported to our grocery stores.

This is the "guilt" I am talking about. I used the word "guilt" becuase in Greta's imagination the previous generations shouldn't have squandered non-renewable resources and that she blames them for.

I really don't understand why I have to explain the simplest and most obvious things to you. You are on a philosophy website, don't just argue your side, but use your brain a bit, too, please, s'il vous plait, bitte schon, kerem szepen, pazhaluysta.

It would be worth your while to investigate how much electricity a solar panel produces on an average day. Or rather, on a daily average taken over a year. Then compare it to the consumption of electric power of the household where it's erected; then add to it the cost of the manufacturing and installation. As an exercise.

They also decide on the procurement of nuclear power. — Punshhh

I am not sure from your English if they have approved the use of nuclear power or they just have the power (political power) to approve it or not. Please report back to me what you meant.

Last Thursday I saw a squirrel outside. There is no empirical evidence that there this squirrel that I saw Thursday. By your argument I cannot say that I know there was a squirrel that I saw last Thursday. That is obviously absurd. — Sherbert

The empirical evidence was that you saw it. If you did not see it but insisted that there was a squirrel there last Thursday, but you never heard anyone attest to it, or have some sort of trace of it to report, then there is no empirical evidence.

Because the empirical evidence of god is missing, and only exists in legends, one has to use his own powers of judgment whether to believe the report or not. Some believe that the legends are reports of facts of empirical evidence -- some don't.

Seeing a squirrel is your empirical evidence of which I have to make a judgment as to believe your report or not. If I believe it, it is because I have seen squirrels and I know they exist on Thursdays in all kinds of seemingly random places. So it is not inconceivable to me that you are reporting the truth. In fact, it is very, very likely that you are. I choose to believe you therefore, and I accept your report as empirical evidence.

It was 15 commandments until he dropped one of the tablets..-Mel Brooks — Sherbert

God comes down to Earth and meets a Roman. "Roman," God says, "I have a commandment for you." "Oh? What is it?" Asks the Roman. "Thou shalt not kill." Roman retorts: "I can't use that commandment. Our entire empire has been based on blood and sword. Totally counter-productive," and turns and walks away. God walks down the road, and meets a Pharasee. "Pharasee, I have a commandment for you." "Oh? What is it?" "Thou shalt not steal." "WHAT? I can't use that commandment. Our entire economy is based on stealing and lying and misrepresenting products. Sorry." And the Pharasee walks away. Finally God meets Moses. "Moses, I have a commandment for you." "Oh?" Says Moses, "How much does it cost?" God is a bit taken back, "Cost? It costs nothing." "In that case, I'll take ten," says Moses quickly.

Someone else tag me out, this guy can’t be taught. — Pfhorrest

I am a student who uses his head. Years of indoctrination in the wrong logic hasn't touched me. I hope it never will.

What i am objecting to is that you use at least two different scenarios to prove a general point, and the two scenarios are not identical in nature.

I hope to make you understand that if you want to create an a priori rule that applies to ALL scenarios, then your premises can't be exchanged between two paths of reasoning, in a way that the one currently in use is the only premise that applies to the situation and the other premis currently not in use is forbidden to apply to the situation. Yet you do that.

What I read is not that you use separate specific cases, with the same rules, and with the same mechanism of logical constructs to arrive at a conclusion; but instead you use separate specific cases each with their own specific and non-overlapping different rules. And you can't, must not, unify these rules, because the mechanisms you apply in the different cases are also different; yet you claim that your unifying the rules are valid.

More specifically:

1. You claim all rules are applicable to empty sets and to non-empty sets.
2. You use one specific way of showing how on specific the rule applies to non-empty sets.
3. You use another, different specific way of showing how a different specific rule applies to empty sets.
4. You claim that the rules you used in 2. and in 3. are not only compatible, but point at the same result.

No, they don't.

This was illuminated first in your Venn diagram example, where inside the circles the meaning was only meanigful if something existed, while outside the circles it was meaningful only when nothing existed (in the set).

This was illuminated in your second example, when you used a whole bunch of negations to arrive at your points, but each of the three sets used different negations of different things. It would have only been meaningful if you used the same logical steps in all three scenarios and arrived at the same conclusion, that is, at a unified rule. But you did not.

To be completely honest, I did not read your third explanation yet, I'll do it later. But I don't know why you don't see that your methodology does not cut the mustard, so to speak. If the same rule only applies to empty sets when one condition is met but the other condition is not met, and the same rule only applies to non-empty sets when another condition is met, but not the first one, then it's not the same rule, but a modification of the same rule in the two separate instances. And if you modify a rule so it becomes different from its original form, then it is not the same rule.

Please forgive me... but "Soft Hedonism" conjures for me an image which I can't escape, and it stops me from rational thinking of the topic, due to laughing uproarously. The image is a man trying to copulate with a limp d|(k.

Right you are. You seemed to have discovered that methods exist for each discipline. But that does not reduce them to "paperwork".

You're right. I was wrong. I said then after that in at least two places, the correct version, but that does not vindicate me for my error.

Well done.

We can't pray. We shouldn't pray. — TheMadFool

"When I was back there in seminary school, there was a person there, who put forth the proposition that you can petition the Lord with Prayer. Petition the Lord... with Prayer? YOU CAN NOT PETITION THE LORD... WITH PRAYER!" (Audience goes wild.) -- Jim Morrison, on the "Live in Concert" double album by The Doors.

1. This reply is not founded on empirical evidence, and no a priori knowledge exists. So it could be true or false, nobody knows.

2. Rather allegedly, God wrote the ten commandments, but at a time when writing had not been invented by humans yet. How Moses made any sense of it is beyond me. Maybe there was a sort of Rosetta stone included in the package, with Egyptian hierogliphs and Mesopotamian clay writings to explain the jist of it.

I wasn't looking at the difference between mathematics and science in this case.

I was rather interested in what they have in common — alcontali

You could have fooled me with this EARLIER statement by you:

I wonder if computability and epistemology are ultimately not one and the same thing? — alcontali

(My answer to the above was clearly "not", as you know now.)

So, I believe that the core of knowledge-justification always consists of "paperwork", regardless of what knowledge it is about. — alcontali

If you believe that, nobody can sway you from it. Belief defies everything. Some people believe in the Easter Bunny; some, in Jesus the Christ; some, that the empirical world is actual reality; some that everything that has any resemblance to anything else are equal to each other.

Both mathematics and science use their procedure to justify their knowledge. So, in both cases, it is about following the correct procedure. In that sense, in both cases, knowledge is justified by formalisms. — alcontali

It's like saying, "A duck lays an egg, a penquin lays an egg, therefore both duck and penguin are chicken."

Aside from that, science does not follow a formalism.

Other than that, you are spot on correct.

Self-Studying Philosophy

I somehow can't believe philosophy can study its own self. I am very much on the opinion that a human must get involved there somewhere, somehow, in the process.

I still think too much knowledge can be a bad thing. — believenothing

Knowledge is power. And don't you forget that.

Power is something else.

Something else is something else again.

And don't you forget that.

This is the most powerfully useful idea in all of philosophy.

A=A. — Wayfarer

Does it mean I am myself? My first name starts with an "A".

Then what happens when I'm beside myself? Am I still identical to myself?

Or let's suppose I cloned myself. On the other hand, let's not suppose that.

Mathematics and its proofs are presented as a priori truths.

Physical observation and experimentation is empirical.

Therefore you're right, when you say computability and epistemology are different. One depends on a priori findings of truth, the other, empirical ways o finding the truth.

Even the truths of the two systems are different. In the empirical world, there are no truths. Only approximations. In the a priori world, the truths are perfect.

On the other hand if we know only that something in the room is red, — Pfhorrest

Again, this invalidates the possibility that the room is completely empty; yet you specifically stated that that assumption must be true.

You can't cherry pick your assumptions as you go along, you must stick to one or the other, if they are contradictory.

You are playing a dangerous game, purely in a philosophical sense, my friend. (-: You set up goal posts and you demolish them temporarily and re-erect them as they fit your purpose. Socrates or Aristotle would have made minced meat out of your arguments. (I am joking, but only semi-joking. Please reconsider carefully what I said, using reason: you set out the example as "may or may not contain any objects" (paraphrased) and in some parts of your proof you say "the room must necessarily contain objects" (paraphrased). These two claims, or premises, are fully contradictory, therefore your argument fails.)

If we know that everything in the room is red, — Pfhorrest

You specified that the room may contain no objects. Only objects can be red. Nothing cannot be red. Therefore your first premise is wrong. The rest of your argument can be discarded.

Forget about the Venn diagram. — Pfhorrest

Why? It has proof value. Your proposition has been disproven by a proof-value tool. Why proceed from there?

You and I are saying the same thing, I don't know why you spake in a tone as if to correct me. I said

Anarchy - rule by nobody — god must be atheist

Rule by nobody is the same as no ruler. I don't think I said anywhere anarchy = "no rule"

Thank you.

In other words, you must not use parts of one (only one, one and the same) Venn diagram to make it apply to empty sets, and parts of the same to non-empty sets.

I don't know if you can see my point. You say of the areas of the inside of either circles, "this applies to non-empty sets." then you say of the areas outside of both circles, "this applies to empty sets only." This violates the logic of the Venn, because it is supposed to be consistent with itself, and you breach that self-consistency with citing the qualities of disparate parts some of which parts the diagram's logical facts apply to, but to other parts it does not.

Only the fourth category you asked about involves empty sets. The rest involves any sets. — Pfhorrest

But you can't take a Venn diagram and say, "this part of a given Venn diagram applies to these things, and these things only, and that part of the same Venn diagram applies to those things, and those things only, while events invovling these things and events involving those things are mutually exclusive."

Insisting that my objection is false, makes the entire Venn-diagram completely useless. The beauty of Venn diagrams is that they describe a complete set, without exceptions, and the diagram is consistent within itself. Your way of demarking the area inside either circle from the area outside of both circles defeats the very usefulness of the mechanism of Venn Diagrams.

Thanks, PFH.

There are several problems with your explanation if we apply it to things, or to the real world.

But you assure us, rightfully so, that your argument stands only for empty sets.

Why did you not start with that.

"I'm going to propose a complex and apparently wrong logical system, which works in special cases, in particular in cases of empty sets."

Because your proposal does not work for non-empty sets, does it.

I am sorry I made the mistake of not assuming your talking about empty sets. The entire conversation involving othes but you revolved around having things; empty sets, the only one for which the theory works, do not have things.

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

So please, I beg you to reconsider your position for the case when things exist, and the argument is not about empty sets.

So, okay, well, then, what is this apeiron theory? What is its starting point, argument and conclusion? We still don't know, we, the great unwashed who use this site.

I humbly ask the users of this site to speak / write in English. If they use a word that is not in English, but it is in the vocabulary of the professional language of philosophy, then I humbly ask those users to:
1. Alert readers that this is a well-defined word in philosophy use;
2. and possibly give a meaning to it (unless it is tedious to do so.)

You’re arguing against something I didn’t say. Think of a Venn diagram. The left circle is “something”. The right circle is “not everything”. The slice of the left circle that’s not in the right is “everything” (not not everything). The slice of the right circle that’s not in the left is “nothing” (not something). The intersection in the middle is something but not everything, for which we don’t have a special word. — Pfhorrest

Then what is the area OUTSIDE of both circles, and outside their intersection? In Venn diagrams that area is also meaningful.

If "everthing" is the left of the left cirtcle, and "nothing" is only the right of right circle. the intersection is "something".

A state can only be everything, something, or nothing. Yet your Venn diagram shows a fourth state, which state is not logically possible.

Denouncing scientific work? I'm a scientist. — staticphoton

This does not negate that you denounced scientific work. It only asserts that you ought not to have.

You didn't pick up the fact that my argument was against people, not science. — staticphoton

This was not a fact. Your argument was, as far as I can tell, to tell me it is a politicians who will stop global warming not scientists, if anyone IS going to stop it.

global warming, half the world's population doesn't believe in it. Why do you think that is? — staticphoton

It is actually immaterial what half the people of the world think.

The topic of the argument here is that Greta is trying to find a group to blame, and that is what I, personally, vehemently oppose, and find deplorable. This thread is about "fuck Greta". She is a woman, young woman, old child, whatever, who is pissed off at the world, much like everyone else is, and talks about third person singular about those who have created this problem -- not realizing the she, and everyone else, is equally guilty of contributing to the problem, or woudl be if given a chance.

I suggested it is scientists who we must rely on to solve the situation and we must not rely on finding and segregating a group to be the target of our anger because that will lead to no solution and because that would be unfair to the segregated group.

↪god must be atheist oh! and concrete usually refers to ontological objects or entities, which may or may not be physical. Just out of curiosity, what philosophical/epistemological views do you hold concerning the nature of reality, what is truth and what exists? — Shushi

I refuse to be buried under a conglomeration of philosobabble.

God is not concrete. The argument you used said god is concrete. If you want to argue that concrete is actually hypothetical, then I am not your opposing argument partner. I see no reason why that could be arguable.

referring to if God possibly exists — Shushi

Concrete things exist. Hypthetical things don't necessarily exist. You are white-washing the false argument. Or else you don't understand the impact of the words it uses.

That's not my argument, — Shushi

But you do use that argument in your thesis. As a premis. I never said you created that argument. I said "where did you get that argument".

Using a false argument or claim in a premis completely invalidates any conclusion drawn later which is supported by the false claim or argument as a premis.