Hence embarrassing yourself. — fishfry

How? I'm not embarrassed. He should be, with a name like that.

Anyway, how about actually addressing the OP rather than telling me about dead science fiction authors with silly names

In some of his later writings he expressed that idea. I can't imagine slurring the guy for his name. Do you even know who he is? I'm going to let this go. Sorry I mentioned it. — fishfry

No, I am unsure who he was, and I am entirely unclear why you are mentioning him.

I don't agree with him if he thinks we're subject to a systematic illusion of the present. But as I suspect he's dead, I can't take him to task about it.

I don't think we're living in the past. I thought you were saying that it was his opinion that we were. If he agrees with me, then his surname is unjust.

Philip K. Dick was of that opinion. — fishfry

Then he deserved his surname.

Well, I'm saying that's baloney. A certain picture is being assumed to be a true - a picture that, if true, would render all perceptions of the present moment illusory. That's a bad picture, then. It's unlikely to be accurate.

So,

1. if time is a soup - which seems to be the received view - then we do not perceive the present moment.
2. We 'do' perceive the present moment. This, right now, is present.
3. Therefore time is not a soup.

What we need is an account of time that does not render our impressions of the present illusory.

Aw, shucks. I was again foiled by your superior argumenting skills. (S.) — god must be atheist

Glad you've finally taken your meds and some of the scales have fallen from your eyes.

That is, I do not understand metaphysical possibility. — Bartricks
I don't either. I don't know what that is supposed to mean. Care to elaborate? — khaled

Well, it is hard because I don't think it makes sense - so I am explaining something I think is ultimately nonsensical.

Take the proposition that you exist - that is, the proposition "Khaled exists". That is true.

But most philosophers are going to say that though it is true, it is a contingent truth.

And what does that mean? Well, I am not sure. I do not think it is up to me to clarify what it means, given that I do not say that any proposition is contingent. Surely the person who says of a proposition that it is contingent is the one who owes us an explanation of what exactly they mean by the term?

Nevertheless, I'll run through a few candidates.

If someone says of a proposition that it is 'capable' of being false, they might just be expressing their lack of certainty about its actual truth.

But that's not what the philosopher means by 'contingent'. After all, you can be certain that the proposition "Khaled exists" is true, yet they would insist that it remains a contingent truth.

Similarly, someone might say that a proposition is 'capable' of being being and mean by this that they can conceive of its being so. That is, they find they are able to imagine its falsity.

But that isn't what a philosopher means when they say that a proposition is contingent, for there are many propositions that we can imagine being false that (the philosopher would say anyway) are not contingent. For instance, if we are not very good at mental arithmetic we - many of us - might believe that 3 x 18 = 54 yet at the same time be able to imagine that it equals 58 (due to us not being entirely sure what it equals). Nevertheless, the philosopher would insist that 3 x 18 = 54 is not a contingent truth, but a necessary truth.

So what do they mean? Well, again, I stress that it is not up to me to say. But many would say that what they mean is that there is a possible world in which the proposition is false. So, though "Khaled exists" is true in this world - the actual world - there are possible worlds in which it is false (for there are possible worlds in which you don't exist).

And I didn't say that he pushed me into a corner. I said "In what fantasy world did you push me into a corner?" A fantasy world is not this world, is it?

So, he did not say that he pushed me into a corner, and I did not say that he did either. All is well.

It's not quite as simple as that, but the details would bore you.

I suppose you'd ask non-experts - is that right? God must be atheist? Praxis?

What about all the time that passes prior to their becoming aware of that fact? — creativesoul

What are you even asking there? You are asking me a question about a patch of time?

Locate the fallacies.

As I said... you're a bit boring to have several years of graduate level philosophy. — creativesoul

So you think that what determines whether you've had several years of graduate level philosophy is not how much graduate level philosophy you have had, but how interesting you are (more particularly, how interesting you are to someone who has 'not' had any years of graduate level philosophy study). Is that right?

Do you think the point of graduate study is to be able to entertain you, or is perhaps the point to get things right, even if that might bore someone who doesn't care less about such matters - what do you think?

You ask the experts.

Now, can you answer my question above please, if it isn't too boring.

↪creativesoulThe same one where it makes sense to ask such a stupid question. — creativesoul
So, as you clearly think it doesn't make senes to ask that question on 'this' planet, you admit that the 'is this person interesting to creativesoul' test is not the test of expertise here. Yes? — Bartricks

The same one where it makes sense to ask such a stupid question. — creativesoul

So, as you clearly think it doesn't make senes to ask that question on 'this' planet, you admit that the 'is this person interesting to creativesoul' test is not the test of expertise here. Yes?

You're a bit boring - to me - to be an expert. — creativesoul

On what planet is that the test of whether someone is an expert? Is this person an expert? I dunno - see if creativeoul finds him interesting (creative soul's over there, trying to force his face through a closed window).

Are you an expert on experts?

A keen eye for using certain fallacious means at the appropriate time. — creativesoul

I don't think I've committed a fallacy anywhere on this site. But by all means draw my attention to one.

Your participation on this forum could be the one activity that keeps you thinking positively about yourself. I mean, some folk find picking on other people to be an acceptable worthwhile ability/habit/personality trait.

Now, you're attempting to use the notion of "expert" as a means of what... exactly? Self comfort?

:kiss: — creativesoul

Are you a psychologist? Hope not, because your analysis is rubbish. But anyway, the reason I keep talking about expertise here is because that's what this thread is about.

A means of devaluing another person's thoughts on a matter... God notwithstanding...

Appeal to authority is wrong for very good Reason. — creativesoul

Joined-up thinking please, not just a series of blurts.

I agree, but I wouldn't stop there. I would say, saying that a proposition is true (or TRUE) is really no different to expressing (asserting) the sentence. — bongo fury

I don't expect you will approve of any of these steps. — bongo fury

I partially approve of them, it is just that I identify 'truth' with an activity of Reason, rather than an activity of ourselves. Our judgements about a proposition's truth or lack of it are then judgements about whether or not Reason is asserting it. In this way I will be able to do everything you can do, yet at the same time respect appearances - for when we judge a proposition to be true we do not appear to be just asserting something (that gets things the wrong way around, for in general asserting something does not make it so; we assert that something is the case because we take it to be the case - that is, we think it is true that it is the case).
So my problem with your view is not that it is fundamentally wrong - for I hold a version of it - but that there is no evidence it (your version, that is) is true.

Of course, one might well say the same about my view that necessity and contingency are not features of reality. For after all, they do appear to be features of reality given that our guide to reality -the representations of our reason - represent many propositions to be true of necessity.

But I have a case for thinking that such representations are likely to be being misinterpreted by us (I haven't made it here, for I am just exploring the coherence of the possibility, rather than the case for its actuality). I think there is no parallel case for thinking that truth is unreal.

I hate to call you out on this minor detail but you just contradicted yourself by asking for help when apparently your suggesting that you don't need it. — 3017amen

I haven't asked for help, I am testing a thesis. I am seeing if I can do without the notions of necessity and contingency and not thereby commit myself to affirming any contradictions. I am waiting for someone to show me - not just declare - that I will be bound to affirm a contradiction.

At any rate, I have demonstrated by that simple syllogism (including of course my other responses) where contingent/necessity is appropriate in (cosmological/metaphysical) discourse, without going into any extraneous explanation that could confuse you. — 3017amen

No, like I say, you put terms like 'necessary' into the premises, thus presupposing what needed to be demonstrated.

But to answer your concern, you denying those so-called logical tools of discourse would not present any contradictions. However, with all due respect, by denying them you would also be denying yourself of a higher level of understanding. At the risk of redundancy, theoretical physics uses those tools to help advance various theories about same. — 3017amen

Stop talking - it isn't making sense. When I was at school I didn't learn any French because I just cheated by copying my friend's work. When it came to the French oral exam I had no clue what the teacher was asking me, and so I just made some noises in the hope that somehow they might be French sentences. You're doing something equivalent here methinks.

I don't think you've got anything to teach me. If you could show me how, by denying the reality of necessity and contingency, I am bound to find myself affirming contradictions, then I would revise my view. That is, my pride would take a fall.

You are still misusing ad hominem. I have not been pushed into a corner - I am stood out in the open, naked and proud. You're just locked in a fantasy in which you're Baron Logic and you have a big swishy cloak and a menacing helmet.

Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy. As introductions go, it doesn't get better and if you ask philosophy professors which book they read that first got them properly interested in philosophy this is the one that is consistently mentioned more than any other.

The feeling is mutual - nothing you're saying makes any sense. Just a sequence of non-sequiturs with added misguided confidence.

Would any expert academic in your field cite a Wikipedia page in a peer review article?

I could follow your expert opinion that today's experts are not the right ones, but then other experts will have a different take on that. — Coben

But I don't think any expert in metaphysics would deny that, historically, most expert metaphysicians - including most of the undisputed best - have thought that God's existence could either be proved or shown to be overall more reasonable than not. They may not themselves think that God's existence has been proved or shown to be more reasonable than not, but they will agree that the bulk of the best have thought the opposite.

Note too, the quality of the metaphysician counts for a lot. Let's say 100 third rate expert metaphysicians think that there is no good case for God's existence. But 5 of the very best metaphysicians - as judged by the harshest of all critics: time - think that there is a good case for God's existence. Well, then despite the difference in numbers it is probably wiser to think the 5 are correct than the 100 third-raters.

Of course, comparing cohorts is not how one does metaphysics - one has to assess arguments on their own merits. The point, though, is that for non-experts the fact that the majority of great metaphysicians have judged God's existence either to be rationally demonstrable, or to be more reasonable than not, provides them with good reason to suppose that this is in fact the case, even if they - non-experts - can't see why, or believe otherwise, or find what some other non-expert has said on the matter more convincing.

But if it's on the issue of there being a God, I still have to choose which expert. — Coben

I don't think you do. It is surely sufficient for a non-expert to have reason to believe there is a proof of the existence of a god that an expert has said so, especially when the proof in question has not yet been assessed by other experts.

Say you are in some kind of a diamond hall and the diamond experts are sat at their tables sifting through piles of diamonds and paste fakes, putting diamonds in one pile on their respective desks and paste fakes in the other.

You go up to one of these tables. There is a pile on the left marked 'diamonds' and a pile on the right marked 'paste'. Stones have been put in these respective piles by one expert - the expert sat at this particular desk. So no other expert apart from this one has inspected these stones. And it is also well known that diamond experts do sometimes - though far more rarely than any non-expert would - mistake a paste diamond for the real deal. Nevertheless, as a non-expert yourself you surely have very good reason to think that a stone taken from the pile marked 'diamonds' will be a diamonds and not paste? And that's the case no matter whose table you go to.

Now imagine you go to a 'God proof hall' full of expert metaphysicians sat at tables sifting pieces of paper into two trays on their respective tables. In each case one tray is marked 'proof of God' and the other 'not a proof of God'. You look around the room. On all of the tables bar one, there is nothing in the 'proof of God' tray. Do you have reason to think that the piece of paper in the pile marked 'proof of God' in the tray on that one metaphysician's table is a proof of God?

I think you should take seriously that it is. It hasn't been checked by the others, and even experts make mistakes. But still.

In a cosmological context, this would be an example of 'why':

1.Every contingent fact has an explanation.
2.There is a contingent fact that includes all other contingent facts.
3.Therefore, there is an explanation of this fact.
4.This explanation must involve a necessary being.
5.This necessary being is God. — 3017amen

Er, how on earth does that demonstrate that "always is the case" means the same as "necessarily is the case"??

It just doesn't. For one thing, you're helping yourself to the very notions whose need is in question, and for another you're just not addressing my question, you've just said some things.

That's not what I asked though. I don't think it is obvious that the vast bulk would say that this distinction is necessary to make. — khaled

I think most would consider it incoherent to deny the reality of either or both. They may be right, of course. I am just exploring whether we can do without them, given that I do not really understand how either could be a reality.

Care to elaborate? I think: "I am eating right now" is an example of a proposition that is true at the moment but could very well be false. — khaled

I do not know what 'could very well be false' means here. That is, I do not understand metaphysical possibility. I understand epistemic possibility - that is, not being certain whether something is the case. And I think that often when we say "but it could be false" it is our uncertainty about its actual truth that we are expressing (which is fine). And I understand what it means to say that one can think it false - that is, that it is conceivably false - and I think we sometimes say 'could be false' to express this idea (that is, that though we believe it to be true, we have or are imagining it to be false too). But if one is using the 'could' to express metaphysical possibility, then I do not really know what it means. Which is why I am trying to dispense with the notion.

Are you an expert in either philosophy or physics?

If the quote from wikipedia is not attributable because it should be considered original research, then it will probably already have been flagged as such in the page itself. If not, the sources mentioned in the page may not support the quote. That is also possible. Otherwise, the quote can be considered to be sound. — alcontali

Gibberish.

How exactly do you know that?

If you cannot justify that this particular quote was not written by an expert, then your own views are certainly not the ones of an expert. — alcontali

Well, because there's nothing in it for them. Why would an expert write a Wikipedia page? It isn't peer reviewed, so it won't count for anything. I mean, I suppose they might if they wanted to just promote themselves - they could cite their own articles a lot or make out they're a bigger name than they are or something - but then that this might be the sort of motivation that could drive an expert to devote some of their valuable time to writing Wikipedia pages only underlines why such pages are unreliable.

How exactly do you know that?
Did you verify the page's revision history?
Did you compile that information from the talk section for the page? — alcontali

It isn't peer reviewed by academic standards. Hence why an academic wouldn't cite such pages in their work and why students are told not to cite them in their work.

Not that it is particularly hard, but you really sound like someone who does not need to read anything but still knows everything. — alcontali

I think someone exactly like that would think what you've just said is true.

Seriously, what exactly do you actually "know"? You may think you "know" it, but in the end, just like in the case of Wikipedia, you obviously know fuck all. — alcontali

Do you, by any chance, write Wikipedia pages? If the answer is 'yes', then case closed.

Proves beyond a reasonable doubt that one can be formally educated and be quite wrong, and thus not an expert... unless experts can be wrong... oh wait! — creativesoul

The classic opinion of a non-expert. "Experts are no better than us non-experts" Er, no. Experts can be wrong. But that's true of non-experts as well. And non-experts are wrong a lot more often - they're not experts after all.

No, I believe there is a proof, but I am not sure why you think I think it is the only proof - there may be others, and other arguments that by themselves fall short of proving God's existence might nevertheless do so when accumulated.

The point here, though, given that this thread is on expertise, is that if an expert - a metaphysician - believes there is such an argument, then other things being equal non-experts have good reason to think he/she is correct, even if what the expert is saying contradicts what they believe, for they haven't thought about it as much or as well as the expert has.

If I say that something is always the case, that is not the same as saying that it must be the case.

Let's say I have existed since the beginning of time. It is now true to say that I have always existed. Yet that does not mean that I exist of necessity.

Those who believe in necessity would, I think, happily accept this. For they would accept that a proposition that has always been true is not thereby incapable of being false.

n other words, if you said 'all events have a cause', then you would be suggesting a necessary truth. — 3017amen

Why? I don't see that at all.

What do you take the word neccessary to mean ? — Wittgenstein

I take the word to be expressive. So, when I use it it functions a bit like 'hooray' - that is, it expresses an attitude, rather than describes a feature. That's why I don't think there is any necessity in the world - for saying that a proposition is 'necessarily true' is really no different to saying it is TRUE!! That is, 'necessarily' does what caps lock does.

But when philosophers use it they mean, well, I am not really sure 'exactly' what they mean, which is why I think I can get by without the notion. But they say they mean things such as 'true in all possible worlds' or 'can't be false'.

By necessary truth, do you mean proposition that are true by definition. For example "All bachelors are unmarried " is true by definition. It is necessarily true. — Wittgenstein

How does the fact a proposition is true by definition make it necessarily true? Why not just 'true'?

If you are saying that you think all events have 'cause-s', you are saying that it is both a necessary and contingent truth. ( At first you said 'False', so I'm just trying to understand you.) — 3017amen

I think all the events have causes. That's not the same as saying that all events must have causes.

I'm trying to understand you - I don't understand why you think the claim that all events have causes is equivalent to saying that all events must have causes.

How does "all propositions are false" pose a difficulty for me?

I think the proposition "all propositions are false" is false. For I believe that some propositions are true.

As for a proposition like this "this proposition is false" - well, I think that proposition is either true or false, but I am not sure which. (Perhaps it is both - in which case it is a counter example to the law of non-contradiction. I think that law is true, but as I do not think it is a necessary truth, I do not see why a counter-example to it would be a problem for me).

So anyway, I fail to see how it poses a difficulty for the view I am putting forward here specifically.

I think all events do have causes. I don't think they have to. But I think they all do. So there's no 'must' about it.

This from Wikipedia: — A Seagull

Wikipedia? What next? You going to quote from some toilet cubicle graffiti?

Wikipedia is not written by experts. It isn't peer reviewed. You could write a Wikipedia entry, yes? So how is quoting from Wikipedia quoting from any kind of authority?

I realize you prefer ad hominem when pushed in a corner, but that's ok. (Unfortunately, many people resort to that behavior as a deflection mechanism when denying facts.) It's a cognitive science thing too expansive to unpack here. — 3017amen

In what fantasy world did you push me into a corner? You tried to show that I was committed to a contradiction, and I showed you in no uncertain terms that you were wrong. I believe it is true that there is at least one true proposition and I believe it is false that it is necessarily true that there is at least one true proposition. Those are not contradictory beliefs!

You are also misusing 'ad hominem'.

Maybe, 'contingent truth' will be easier for you to grasp. — 3017amen

Er, you realize you lost the last skirmish, yes? I rolled over you like a tank over a kitten. It's you, matey, who's having trouble grasping things, namely reality.

First answer this question: — 3017amen

Bossy.

1. all events must have a cause

Is that proposition true or false? — 3017amen

False.

I think it works better if it is a consensus of experts, and I tend to take it seriously. But they've been wrong. — Coben

Well certainly experts can make mistakes (and expert philosophers spend a great deal of time pointing each other's mistakes out). But so too do those who lack expertise. And of course, those who lack expertise make the mistakes far, far more often.

And I agree that if there is a consensus among experts that X is a proof of God, then other things being equal non-experts are more justified in believing that X is a proof of God than if it is one expert alone who is saying that X is a proof of God.

But in this hypothetical situation, if one expert says that X is a proof of God, and what this expert is saying is not positively contradicted by a consensus of experts (because the other experts simply haven't scrutinized the argument yet), then a non-expert should take seriously that X is a proof of God.

I mean, why shouldn't they? If the expert really is an expert, then they know their beans. They've spent years and years thinking about these matters - far more than a non-expert. So they're far less likely to mistake a proof of God for something that isn't one. Non-experts do that kind of thing all the time. Their 'proofs' are the work of an afternoon, not thousands and thousands of hours. They've read one or two things - probably popular books and Wikipedia entries - not hundreds of peer reviewed articles and a pile of dry academic books. And they're used to being cautious and to checking and rechecking their arguments - for their career depends on them doing so. That's part of what expertise involves - it involves doing all the tedious checking and cross checking, reading and re-reading - that non-experts just can't be bothered doing (not a criticism of course - it is why we have experts).

So, given all that, even if one solitary expert says that X is a proof of God, then even if that supposed poof has not been verified by other experts, a non-expert should still take seriously that X may be a proof of God.

Expert philosophers make mistakes, but not as many as non-experts, and so other things being equal it is wise to trust the expert over the non-expert.

Can someone congenial prescribe a god to a non-believer? Can a proof be so shallow that ducks even won't wade in it? Can someone ask questions if he is only able to do that in lieu of coherent speech and thought? — god must be atheist

Erm, hmm, okaaay. Not really an answer to my question, but okay.

I had one semester of senior-level philosophy. You? — jgill

More, of course.

My prof laughed at metaphysics. Although I proposed Leibniz's monads to him as a legitimate metaphysical actuality. I think it is — jgill

So you think, like me, that everything that exists is made of indivisible, simple entities? Good!