You're not paying attention... let's back up. Here is what you said:

If I write you a note saying "The cat is on the mat" is the note telling you that the cat is on the mat? No. I am. By means of the note. The note is telling you nothing. I am telling you something by means of the note. — Bartricks

So let me phrase it this way. If a scale produces the symbol "250", is the display telling me that I weigh 250? Apparently, no, something else is by means of the display. The display tells me nothing. The something else is telling me my weight by means of the display.

What pray tell, Bartricks, could that something else be?

First, they're designed. — Bartricks

Sure, the scale is designed. But the designer is not telling me I weigh 250. So, sorry, no. It's not the designer of the scale.

Second, I have not denied that one can acquire true beliefs from bot-created faculties. — Bartricks

Okay, great. But how does that work, given "notes" (the display showing 250) don't tell me things?

Third, you are using the scales - or 'scales' if we suppose them to be a flukey product of blind natural forces - to acquire information about your weight. — Bartricks

Not always; in this case I am, but (I tell you no lie) my cat quite often steps onto the scales spontaneously. It's an inside joke with my s.o.; when I say, "our cat weighs 15", my s.o. immediately knows the real underlying meaning is simply that the cat stepped onto the digital scales again. I seriously doubt my cat is interested in weighing anything when doing so. Nevertheless, that 15 still represents the weight of my cat.

I mean, let's imagine that, ...You have acquired a true belief about your weight, but you have not been told it. — Bartricks

Nevertheless, when that display simply shows "15" when my cat is on it, that represents the weight of my cat. Or let me phrase it this way... the "15" that shows up on the digital scale is not being used by an agent to tell me what my cat weighs. But it still nevertheless represents the weight of my cat.

As to your second point, so you think the clouds are agents? — Bartricks

No.

I have not, note, assumed that natural forces cannot create agents. — Bartricks

You have assumed blind natural forces cannot produce awareness. Agents have awareness.

If I step onto a digital scale and it says "250", then I can conclude from reading that display that I weigh 250; i.e., 250 represents my weight. There is no bypassing this; the 250 on that digital display represents my weight. In fact, that's a better reason to believe I weigh 250 than if some person (e.g., guy at a carnival) looked at me and told me I weigh 250.

Also, your justification for your first premise is nothing but red herrings through and through. That blind natural forces might hypothetically produce sky writing would be a testament of one class of things blind natural forces can do, but says nothing about what blind natural forces cannot do. Your argument for what blind natural forces cannot do transparently shows the flaw in your argument; you're circularly assuming blind natural forces cannot produce agents... as clearly conveyed in this leading question:

What if the note was the creation of blind natural forces and you just found it on the floor (so it was not being used by an agent to convey information to you, and nor have the squiggles been created by any agent)? — Bartricks

...but isn't that your premise? Nowhere have you shown blind natural forces in fact cannot produce agents.

As I wrote in my previous post, in my personal experience, my volition arises in a part of my mind that is not directly accessible to my self-awareness. When I act on that motivation, it is just as much me acting as it would be if I became aware before I acted. I am just as responsible for my actions as I would be otherwise. Part of what I call "me" is hidden the way the innards of my computer are hidden. — T Clark

This matches how I experience things as well. I certainly can consciously deliberate and then act, but the vast majority of things I do don't work that way. I view my self awareness as something I have, not something I "am". It's nice to see someone else convey this view; if I'm crazy at least I have some company!

For a spookier example, tests show that the sense of voluntary movement (i.e. I decide to move my hand now) actually comes after the movement has already started. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Just to pick this apart... there's an unfortunate common assumption that "the I" equates to "what I am aware of when I self reflect"; as if these are indivisible entities. But I've never quite understood how this is really supposed to work anyway... if I decide to move my hand now, how can that sensibly be the same as my awareness of my deciding to move my hand now? (I suppose the model is supposed to work like I first consciously deliberate, then I decide, then it happens; but that quite simply doesn't fit my experience of how most of the voluntary actions I perform feels like).

If you drop the assumption that these two aspects are identical things, then the fact that the awareness follows the initiation isn't surprising at all; it would almost be surprising if it weren't true.

I gather this is supposed to be surprising, as that is what's supposed to be "spooky" about it.

And you thought I didn’t get it. — Mww

Apparently not, because you keep saying something follows that doesn't follow.

I grant the present represented by zero is synonymous with the beginning of negative hours, just as Kant’s argument stipulated the beginning of the world. — Mww

"Negative", "zero", and "positive" are classes of numbers. In terms of ordering, 0 divides the classes; greater numbers are positive, lesser are negative, and 0 per se is in neither (in the typical scheme). By beginning we usually talk about the lower end; so in this case, that would be discussions about horizons. This refocus on the upper end "to make a point" doesn't seem to make it pretty well. Even so, nothing meaningful is entailed on that side either, so let's talk both.

It follows that there must be a time where negative hours did not exist, just as there must have been a time when the world did not exist,

Nothing about the extent of that blue line follows from the extent of the ruler. Be it horizon or origin, the line may not reach it, may reach it exclusively, reach it inclusively, or may go beyond it. I cannot rule in or out any of those things on the basis of pontificating on the nature of the number classes.

for that which has a beginning must have a time relative to it necessarily. — Mww

Not sure what you're saying here. 0 is the beginning of the negative numbers by your scheme, but 0 is not negative; so the beginning point is exclusive.

In the case of the numbers — Mww

...I've discussed the number cases above. We have classes with inclusive and exclusive endpoints and classes with no endpoints.

But no matter its beginning, it did have one, therefore it could not have had an infinite past in which no beginning is to be found. — Mww

No, that does not follow. The horizon can be an exclusive endpoint or an inclusive endpoint (or a non-endpoint). We can have a future horizon just like that as well. There is no meaningful restriction to the extent of that blue line that you can infer from any infinitude of a ruler.

there have been a few. Which one, please? — Mww

Fair question. Here I was referring to the argument Amalac quoted in the first post ("Kant's argument as Popper presents it").

It wasn’t Popper’s, it was Kant’s. — Mww

Sort of; it's "Kant's argument as Popper presents it" (see below).

And it wasn’t a challenge as much as a misunderstanding by the thread’s author, of the original argument logically proving the impossibility of the world having no beginning. — Mww

The one does not preclude the other:

Maybe I don't quite understand Kant's argument as Popper presents it, but: isn't that as fallacious as arguing that the series of negative integers cannot be infinite because otherwise it could never reach -3? — Amalac

There is definitely a challenge here ("isn't that as fallacious as"...).

To prove a possibility, one must prove a necessity, and to prove a necessity one needs prove an existence. — Mww

We seem to have vastly different views of modality. One need not prove a necessity nor an existence to prove a possibility. I can prove it possible for me to run from A to B by running from C to D, or running on a treadmill. Or, I can prove a wooden floor can hold 500 pounds by analysis (I need never put a 500 pound weight on it). In this case, the impossibility argument is based on an alleged absurdity; showing the alleged absurdity viable suffices to undermine the argument.

Or we can phrase it another way. The challenge is that the argument is fallacious. A fallacious argument is an invalid argument. But arguments can be invalid even if their conclusions are true. To show an argument invalid, one simply needs to show the conclusions don't follow.

The common rejoinder is, of course.....why not both. A beginning for the world and that beginning infinitely long ago. — Mww

Sure, that's possible too. Per the illustration, it's even possible that there was a prior to the infinitely long ago, as illustrated by the line. I drew this diagram intentionally depicting such a prior, and intentionally making it ambiguous whether there was a beginning or not. But the infinitude nevertheless demonstrates the argument invalid by undermining the alleged absurdity; even if the universe in fact turns out to have a beginning.

The contradictions so blatantly obvious, the counterarguments so lackluster......eventually regressing into such modern conceptual monstrosities as (gaspsputterchoke) “spagettification” — Mww

Obvious does not entail correct. The counterarguments do exactly what was intended... they undermine the alleged absurdity. Undermining the alleged absurdity suffices to undermine the argument. Your confusion that the burden must be way higher is just your confusion.

By my reading and treatment, this thread is more about an argument's validity than about time's actual beginning or lack thereof. To me, it's unknown whether time had a beginning. But it's certain that argument is invalid.

Do you see this doesn’t relate to my arguments with respect to the thread’s original proposition? — Mww

From reading your reply it appears you don't understand the diagram. Let's imagine the units of the above ruler is hours; and the unit of the below ruler is also hours. -1 by the above ruler means one hour ago. -1 on the below ruler also means 1 hour ago. -2 on the below ruler means two hours ago; -3 three hours ago, and so on. By the above ruler, there's a point in time one hour ago. By the below ruler, that point in time is in the infinite past.

So neither of these two pictorial renditions prove the absolute necessity, of that which is grounded only in a mere possibility. — Mww

Sure, ...

It is impossible to prove there is a point on an infinite line, if there is no possibility of an infinite line. — Mww

...but proving the possibility is equivalent to disproving the impossibility. The original post is about challenging Popper's proof of impossibility.

This is a perfect example of reason in conflict with itself.....substituting what is legitimate in thought, with what is illegitimate in experience. — Mww

To what does the phrase "illegitimate in experience" refer?

The universe as a whole is the logical equivalent of your pictorial representation. As such, there is an infinite quantity of constituency in the universe, just as there is an infinite number of points on the line segment, 0 through -1. But the other diagram is bounded by infinity itself, no beginning and no end, which makes it absurd to locate any point on that line. I mean.....where is the access point? — Mww

If Sam falls into an eternal black hole, and I watch, Sam would experience nothing unusual when he falls into the event horizon. His watch just ticks along as usual. There it goes... tick tick tick. I, on other hand, will never see him fall into the black hole, because time dilation is so extreme that Sam asymptotically never goes in, on my ruler. So where is the exit point? Why, it's the event horizon. This time reversed illustration is simply meant to convey that your question, whereas it may at first appear to have no answer, might have the simplest of them... the access point is simply an hour ago by the top ruler and is a type of horizon by the bottom one.

Imagine an empty digital photo, say with resolution of 900x900 pixels and 900 colours. — Zelebg

...or possibly imagine an empty digital photo, with a resolution of 1x1 pixel and 2 colors.

Ahhhh....ok, then. A symbolic proof. Thing is....that little squiggly thing at each end of the representational dotted line segment presupposes the very thing you’re using to prove something about it. — Mww

How about this one?:

...here there's an "object" (blue line) aligned with two rulers. Per the top ruler, it extends backwards from 0 to -1, but keeps going. Per the bottom ruler, that point measured at -1 by the top ruler has infinite measure. It's kind of irrelevant that our numbering system along that bottom ruler "never ends"... that line segment certainly has a point on it.

My point here is that at least in some of your discussions you're confusing the measurement with the thing you are measuring.

As far as I am aware animals dream which does also suggest that animals have a subconscious. — Jack Cummins

But the question here isn't about whether animals have a subconscious; it's about what this implies regarding dream meanings and dream interpretations. I have an eerie feeling that a lot of the speculation here is anthropocentric. As animals, we nevertheless are quite unique in our richness of language (as far as I'm aware); we can be perplexed by our dreams, pull each other aside, talk about them, ponder about them, and so on. We can visit a specialist to analyze the dream and try to find it's meaning. But sleep and dreams are far more ancient than our lingual mastery; so if the dreams do have a purpose, either something's special about us lingual types dreaming, or the bat's dreams also have them.

It's not surprising that we try to interpret our dreams and find meaning in them. I'm not sure if a bat tries to do the same thing, but she does dream, and she may remember some dreams. A countering hypothesis is that dreams don't "mean" things as such, but rather are interpretable simply because they reflect certain features of mind organization. Another countering hypothesis is that dreams don't really "mean" anything at all; that the entire act of interpreting a dream's meaning is akin to pondering why the gods sent that thunderstorm our way.

except to add that active REM-like dreaming sleep-behaviors are observed in (all?) mammals which convinces me that "dreams" are only by-products of sleep's homeostatic maintenance functions and N O T independent, or transcendent, messages or bearers of "meaning". — 180 Proof

Exactly... though I'm open to an explanation, I've been constantly wondering while reading this thread how certain people opining here would account for the fact that our furry cousins can dream just as well as the naked variety. Is there supposed to be something unique about our dreams, or does a bat's dream have meaning too? (Or is the meaning supposed to be just in the interpretation... dreams as ink blots?)

I think I've lost interest.

Team U will prove its claim possibly in only 1 step. Team S will prove its claim only in n steps. — TonesInDeepFreeze

I've no problem with that; but to be more precise, we don't know U will prove its claim in 1 step. But we do know U will prove its claim in less than n steps.

I take the context to be comparing cherries to cherries. — TonesInDeepFreeze

You're mixing metaphors. Cherry picking is a type of selection bias where a person selects data that appears to confirm a conclusion (the metaphorical "cherry picking") while ignoring data that disconfirms it. "Cherries to cherries" sounds more like apples to apples (and its twin idiom "apples to oranges") which refers to comparing comparable things (in the case of apples to apples) or incomparable things (in the case of apples to oranges).

It is not clear how to compare the blend of (1) and (2) with the blend of (3) and (4). — TonesInDeepFreeze

I gave you that exact model. I'll back fill it with justification. If we're using a metric that taking 4 steps is half as difficult as taking 8 steps, then the thing we're measuring is how many steps we take. Hence, George and Joe both pay one dollar every time they take one step. So if George pays 5 dollars, it means he took 5 steps. If Joe pays 6 dollars, then George took less steps than Joe did.

Now in (1), George is taking steps to prove ExBx. In (2), George is also taking steps to prove ExBx. So your blend of (1) and (2) is basically George taking each step in process J. Likewise, in (3) Joe is taking steps to prove ~ExBx. And in (4) Joe is also taking steps to prove ~ExBx. So your blend of (3) and (4) is Joe taking each step in process J. Both George and Joe compare things in the same way because that allows us to meaningfully compare George to Joe (that's the "apples to apples" part).

So there's claim 1 out of the 10,000 claims that go by. It can be anything, but let's say there are 50 dogs, none of them black. That's George case 2 and it is Joe case 3. George pays 50 dollars. Joe pays 50 dollars. George didn't prove his theory, but Joe did, but, both George and Joe paid 50 dollars. So they paid the same thing.

Now claim 2 goes by... there are 1000 dogs, 900 of them black, and it so happens the dog is found on the 3rd try. This is a George case 1 and it is a Joe case 4. George pays 3 dollars. Joe pays 3 dollars. This time, George did prove his theory, but Joe didn't, but both George and Joe paid 3 dollars. The total paid so far is 53 for George, and 53 for Joe. And so on.

But, we note, George did not in fact prove his claim 1, and Joe did not in fact prove his claim 2. So let's only count George's second payment, and Joe's first. Now, the total we get so far is that George paid 3 dollars proving his theory. And Joe? He paid 50. Aha! So George in proving his theories is paying less than Joe in proving his theories. Right?

Wrong. This is cherry picking, i.e., selecting among the data the points that seem to confirm your theory while ignoring the points that seem to disconfirm it. Specifically our conclusion requires us to have ignored the 50 bucks George did indeed pay and the 3 bucks Joe did indeed pay. That we're counting it because "these are different things" and "George didn't prove anything in his first claim" is simply rationalizing the selection bias. Paying attention to only the cases where George and Joe managed to prove what they set out to prove is the selection bias.

But I appreciate your candor in telling me that you're not interested in what I have to say. — TonesInDeepFreeze

There's just the single point I'm uninterested in, without you telling me why I should be. If I were generally uninterested in what you have to say, I wouldn't be talking with you.

So we'll[you'll] disregard your comment about it, after I've pointed out it was not apropos. — TonesInDeepFreeze

FTFY.

And it's not a meaningful comparison to what I said. — TonesInDeepFreeze

I'll take that as a position statement, since you didn't bother convincing me of anything. That leaves my position that your comparison is meaningless untouched.

I have no interest in what you care about. — TonesInDeepFreeze

That is clearly false, because you keep replying to me and "merely stating" things directly to me.

I even made this clear when I said (twice) that we can reduce to more neutral terms — TonesInDeepFreeze

The neutrality of the terms has nothing to do with my lack of interest in what you're telling me.

Let's try this dimension. You and I both agree that the min and max steps J will take before halting depends on the number of dogs in that table. I argue, and actually show, that the min and max steps J will take before halting does not depend on what you set out to claim before you initiate J. Now you are comparing this:

(1) compared with (3) gives difficulty more to Team A — TonesInDeepFreeze

...where 1 and 3 respectively are:

(1) If ExBx is true, then Team A will prove its claim and might do so early. ... (3) If ~ExBx is true, then Team B will prove its claim but it won't do so early. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Your (1) as phrased is closest to 3 in my table. Your (3) is a great match to 2 in my table.

Row 3 in my table has a min/max difficulty of (1,n), because there is 1 black dog. Row 2 in my table has a min/max difficulty of (n,n), because there are 0 black dogs. Row 1 has the same min/max difficulty as Row 2, because despite the claim column not matching the will prove column, the # dogs column which is the real dependent variable is the same. Row 4 has the same exact difficulty as row 3. because despite the claim column not matching the will prove column, the # dogs column which is the real dependent variable is the same. Ignoring Rows 1 and 4 does not make the min/max difficulty dependent on the claim.

Furthermore, I don't think you even disagree with this. The only reason for me to state it is to make it crystal clear that this is what we agree on. Good!

And, again, for the question of proving a claim, (2) and (4) are not relevant in the same way that (1) and (3) are. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Consider this. We have Joe who always makes a negative claim, and George who always makes a positive one. It cost one dollar to do one J step. For apples to apples comparisons, George and Joe are going to attempt to prove every theorem that goes their way, and they will always check all of the metaphorical dog houses in the same order. Let's say there are several thousands of such claims. Then by the last claim, George and Joe paid the same amount of money trying to prove their negative and positive claims. Sure, if we ignore all of those times George paid $n to find out he was wrong and Joe paid $k<n to find out he was wrong, George might pay less total money than Joe. But that is not a real argument that positive claims are cheaper than negative ones.

And, again, for the question of proving a claim, (2) and (4) are not relevant in the same way that (1) and (3) are. — TonesInDeepFreeze

If (1) can happen to George (4) ipso facto can happen to Joe. If (3) can happen to Joe (2) ipso facto can happen to George. The symmetry here guarantees equal grounding for costs paid.

We can consider two possible worlds: World A in which ExBx is true and World B in which ~ExBx is true. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Sure, we can do that. But only one possible world is our actual one. But there's nothing stopping us from partitioning the actual world. There exists no black dogs... in Saskatchewan. There exists a black dog... in Uzbekistan. But how would this help, say, getting George to pay less money than Joe?

You may take the subject of this discussion to be whatever you like, but where the sense is taken to be "how difficult is it to prove?", then it seems to me that it is more difficult for Team A. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Only if you partition George and Joe's piles by what you want to call "that is a proof" do you have a chance that George pays less than Joe. But that requires you to cherry pick, and I literally mean requires. Without cherry picking there is no cost benefit.

But then you haven't proven "there are no black dogs". You've proven "some dogs are black." — TheMadFool

Yes. But in proving "some dogs are black", you have proved your initial claim futile! Searching that third dog won't do you any good.

I think it's more than healthy to accept that you can be wrong... that's basically (ironically) the only proper way to be right. You discover that your wrong claim is wrong as fast as possible, then move on. Luckily for this guy, he was able to discard his false belief on step 2.

Indeed but proving one disproves the other (contradictory). — TheMadFool

Exactly. That's why even though it takes n steps to prove there are no black dogs, if you find one on step 2 you can stop.

We can also phrase this in terms of philosophical knowledge. Maybe you believe the claim you're trying to prove. But before you prove it you don't have any real knowledge of it; you have an unjustified belief (UB). If you happen to be right, that's just an unjustified true belief (UTB). If you're wrong, it's a UFB.

The search ends as soon as you get justification, either for or against the thing you set out to prove. The person trying to prove there were no black dogs was all pepped up, fully prepared to look at all n dogs. Before step 1, this person had a UFB that ~ExBx. At step 1, same thing... it's a UFB that ~ExBx. But by step 2, the person attains a JTB that ExBx, which means ~ExBx is false.

The whole point of this thread is to compare such pairs of statements (a positive statement and its negation, the corresponding negative statement) in re which is easier to demonstrate as a truth. — TheMadFool

But given we're talking about empirical claims, I think you get into trouble when you entertain comparing something real to something hypothetical. Would it be easier for me to prove the Goldbach conjecture is true, or to prove the Goldbach conjecture is false? The real answer is that I can only prove at most one of those things, and the other one, given I can't prove it, leaves me nothing to compare that proof to. Would it be easier for me to prove there is intelligent extra-terrestrial life in our galaxy, or to prove there isn't intelligent extra-terrestrial life in our galaxy? Again, the real answer is that I can only prove at most one of those two things (presuming it's well defined enough to be crisp).

Yes but I'm not talking about disproving N which is equivalent to proving E. I'm interested in knowing whether it's easier to prove N or easier to prove E. — TheMadFool

But you can only prove N if N, and you can only prove E if E. Since N and E cannot both be true, the comparison between the proof of N and the proof of E is illegitimate.

We can side step this by just considering distinct claims. E=there exists a black dog, N=there does not exist a purple frog. Even here though, it still depends... how many dogs are there versus frogs? So we should fix that as well... for apples to apples comparisons, there are exactly as many of each. Finally, we'll suppose the set of affairs matches up... but we may as well overspecify while we're at it... there are no purple frogs, but there are at least 2 black dogs.

So now we have something that's meaningfully comparable; and indeed proving E is easier than proving N.

What I'm saying is it's easier to prove E than N for the simple reason that N requires a complete search of ALL dogs while E doesn't necessarily require that. — TheMadFool

Sure, but it's just as easy to disconfirm N as it is to prove E. Not only is it just as easy, but in our toy scenario it's literally the same thing. And it's just as easy to prove N as it is to disconfirm E. There will be some state of affairs, whatever it is... that might be E, or it might be N. If it is E, then P for both E and N are exactly as difficult as each other. If it is N, the P for both E and N are exactly as difficult as each other.

Given a state of affairs, the difference in effort has nothing to do with whether you're claiming E or N. The only thing that relies on whether you're claiming E or N is whether in the end you are confirming or disconfirming your claim. Does that make sense?

Clearly, proving "no dogs are black" is more difficult, as defined above, than proving some dogs are black. See A1 and B1 vide supra. — TheMadFool

Analogous to A3, B is missing the case where you discover a dog earlier.

Despite the fact that you're trying to prove there are no black dogs (~ExBx), you don't initially know whether ExBx or ~ExBx. So say you start, you check the first dog, and it's not black. Everything is the same; you still don't know whether ExBx or ~ExBx. So say you check the second dog, and it is in fact black. But at that point everything changes. Suddenly, you know ~ExBx is false, and you know ExBx is true. You failed to prove your claim, but that piece of knowledge means your proof halted (in failure, but halted nonetheless).

At the risk of making this thread useful:

No result in a search for “Plato's Phaedo” — praxis

What is the difficulty in proving ExBx when ExBx is true vs. the difficulty in proving ~ExBx when ~ExBx is true?
The comparison is meaningless. Convince me otherwise. — InPitzotl

What you're asking requires that I repeat myself. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Repeating the comparison doesn't get you any closer to convincing me that it's a meaningful comparison. Suppose I have a function f(x). I can say f(0) might be 1. I can say f(0) might be 2. I can say 1<2; that's comparing 1 to 2. But I propose that saying "f(0) if f(0) is 1 is less than f(0) if f(0) is 2" is gibberish.

Repeating the gibberish does nothing to advance the notion that it's meaningful. Repeating it is just superfluous. IOW, no, repeating yourself is neither required nor helpful.

So what? I didn't say anything there about who has "burden of proof". — TonesInDeepFreeze

That's entirely correct. You didn't say anything there about who has "burden of proof". And:

So what? That burden of proof is the main subject of the thread doesn't entail that I can't also comment on individual points that have arisen. — TonesInDeepFreeze

...that is also correct. That the burden of proof is the main subject of the thread doesn't entail that you can't also comment on individual points that have arisen.

The point I have lately been commenting on has been the difference in difficulty between proving ExBx and proving ~ExBx. — TonesInDeepFreeze

..but that is incorrect, or at least it's not the whole story. In this post:

The situation is not:
"Team A, discover whether there is a black dog; and Team B, discover whether there is a black dog."
Rather the situation is:
"Team A, you win if you prove there is a black dog; and Team B, you win if you prove there is not a black dog. " — TonesInDeepFreeze

...you're explicitly telling me what something you call "the situation" first is not, and second rather is. What is meant by declaring "the situation" to be that second thing and not that first thing you don't state, but there's some implication that you really, really want me to care about that second thing and to not care about that first thing.

When I ask you to connect "the situation" to the topic at hand, I'm not by doing so claiming you made that connection... rather, I'm prompting you to justify why I should be interested in this thing you're calling "the situation". If you want me to be interested in Team-A-winning, you need to sell it to me. Telling me it has nothing to do with that conversation is not a great sales pitch for my caring about it.

Whether Team C [could end] early depends on whether ExBx is true or ~ExBx is true.
Team A might prove its claim and end early only if ExBx is true.
Team B cannot both prove its claim and end early. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Sure, but there are symmetric descriptions of each of these things for Team A, Team B, and Team C in all of those scenarios. ~ExBx is identical to saying |{x:Bx}|=0. |{x:Bx}|=1 implies everyone might end early. |{x:Bx}|=2 and everyone will end early.

We can describe all sorts of scenarios involving Team {A|B|C} {confirming|disconfirming} {their|the} claim that {ExBx|~ExBx} under the condition |{x:Bx}|=k, 0<=k<=n.

At the heart of all of this shuffling of these variables, there's is the intentional carrying out of process J (see below), which was already described (it ends early when you see a black dog; the min/max number of steps is a function of the state of affairs).

If the discussion here is only about a Team C that is out to discover which is the case but not at the outset to make a claim one way or the other, then that it is a very different discussion from the one that had been presented here, which is that of opposing views being claimed, not just discovery. — TonesInDeepFreeze

To me, "discovery" versus "proof" is just a case of special labeling by you. The raw core of what is going on in terms of the cost of the thing and the thing being done that has that cost is that some entity undergoes some process J, which will end at some point when a black dog is discovered in a dog house or all dog houses have been searched, the former of which we get to label as the condition ExBx and the latter as the condition ~ExBx.

FYI, I'm changing the notation for the process from P (for process) to J (for justification).

If the discussion here is only about a Team C that is out to discover which is the case but not at the outset to make a claim one way or the other, then that it is a very different discussion from the one that had been presented here, which is that of opposing views being claimed, not just discovery. — TonesInDeepFreeze

I'm not interested in who is making claims, because it doesn't seem to affect how many steps J goes through, or what we are "J'd" in believing by the fact that J ended early or not whatever the case may be. ExBx is a positive claim. ~ExBx is a negative claim. I don't need claimants to give these those labels.

But the question is not what the facts are, but what is the difficulty in proving the facts. — TonesInDeepFreeze

According to you, I cannot prove my claim if my claim is false. That implies that being able to prove the claim true in the first place requires my claim to be a fact. This is why you have to dance between two contradictory facts:

What is the difficulty in proving ExBx when ExBx is true vs. the difficulty in proving ~ExBx when ~ExBx is true?

...and the fact that this comparison requires dancing between two contradictory facts is just one of the things that makes this meaningless. There's also the fact that there's no meaningful way to measure "ExBx when ExBx is true" despite our having a metric, because that underspecifies what you're talking about.

You're serious? It's a characterization of the problem if the context were a debate. If you don't like "team" and "win" then: — TonesInDeepFreeze

Wrong direction. I think burden of proof for claims applies in a wide variety of areas having nothing to do with winning debates. Furthermore, debates of the type you're describing seem to be relatively rare. The OP of this very thread had an example where a person's partner is trying to convince the person that there is a bear in their house... that's a claim with a burden, but there's no debate going on here... just the search for a bear. And that's not a win. The problem here is not that I dislike the word team, or the word win. It is that I think your view that this thread is about "winning debates" is cartoonish.

I might be corrected on this, but I don't recall making a claim about "burden of proof" in sense of a rhetorical obligation — TonesInDeepFreeze

But you said:

Rather the situation is:
"Team A, you win if you prove there is a black dog; and Team B, you win if you prove there is not a black dog. " — TonesInDeepFreeze

"Burden of proof" is literally in the title of this thread.

They're discovering the facts, not claiming what the facts are, as opposed to the Positive claimer and Negative claimer who both are claiming what the facts are. — TonesInDeepFreeze

They're invoking P and arriving at either a proof of ExBx or a proof of ~ExBx depending on what the state of affairs are. And by our metric they expend the same exact effort Team A or Team B would in proving it. So your red herring accusation doesn't hold up in terms of the difficulty of proving a negative claim or proving a positive claim.

Only that you said that the question was not "Which is easier to prove: ExBx or ~ExBx ?", so I replied that the existential was the question and I only referred to black dogs in particular because that was being discussed — TonesInDeepFreeze

Here's the discussion leading up the black dogs:

I'm approaching the issue with an open mind without any preconceptions or prejudices. My aim was to discover for myself why the burden of proof has to be borne by those making a positive claim and not the one making a negative claim. — TheMadFool

My answer would be, "it depends". — InPitzotl

On what exactly?

PA= Particular affirmative (positive existential claim): Some As are Bs e.g. Some dogs are black — TheMadFool

...and so on.

For odd n, row n+1 - min max - is the same as row n. They are the same because, as far as I can tell, they don't capture the difference in the challenge of proof. — TonesInDeepFreeze

But the reason they don't capture a difference in challenge is because the state of affairs is the same. You have the same number of total dogs and the same number of black dogs.

Team A, you win if you prove there is a black dog; and Team B, you win if you prove there is not a black dog. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Okay, you've made a claim that this is the situation. Back it up.

Tell me what "Team A wins" has to do with negative versus positive claims in relation to burden of proof.

Also, what about Team C, who just wants to figure things out without making claims? The guys who just mix the two chemicals and watches rather than pathetically trying to tell the chemicals what to do before they mix them? Are they just losers in this picture?

I don't see a basis for your sarcasm. — TonesInDeepFreeze

The basis is that you volunteered that you only talked about it because it was mentioned.

The thread didn't start with "black dog" and went for a while without it. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Whereas that's true, it was TMF that started both the thread and the black dog discussion.

You said that the question was not as I couched it, so I merely replied that the question indeed used the example of "black dog". — TonesInDeepFreeze

I'm saying something much more specific. The question in this thread is about the burden of proof as it applies to negative claims versus positive claims. The notion being suggested is that positive claims have a burden of proof because such claims are easier to prove. That is TMF's idea, and I think it's too generic to be correct. My suggestion as to where the burden lies is more: "it depends". In other words, a claim merely being negative or positive does not tell you which of the two claimants has a burden or what it is. In terms of TMF's easy theory, it doesn't even change the task, or how difficult it is to go about it (see below).

I don't claim to understand what you intend to say with your chart. — TonesInDeepFreeze

You replied to it. You said this:

That chart seems to capture discovery not proof. For example, the min in row 4 is 1 only because we discover that there is a black dog and give up trying to prove that there is not one. But that is not the task. The task is to prove there is not a black dog. — TonesInDeepFreeze

But let's take that as an example. Your task is to prove there is not a black dog. That is rows 2, 4, 6, 8.

If there exists a black dog, then proving there exists a black dog might end early. — TonesInDeepFreeze

That condition holds in rows 3, 5, 7.

If there does not exist a black dog, then proving there does not exist a black dog will not end early. — TonesInDeepFreeze

That's row 2.

If there does not exist a black dog, then there is no proof that there exists a black dog, and trying to prove that there exists a black dog will not end early. — TonesInDeepFreeze

That's row 1.

If there does exist a black dog, then there is no proof that there does not exist a black dog, but trying to prove that there does not exist a black dog might end early. — TonesInDeepFreeze

That condition holds in rows 4, 6, 8.

This is part of what the table is doing. If we can map what you mean to say to the rows, we can be precise. The other part of what the table is doing is showing you (at least in a hypothetical sketch) what all of the rows look like in terms of what you're meaning to say so you can see if you're missing something.

But we can proceed then to the next point. If we do apples to apples comparisons between what you're calling trying to prove ExBx and trying to prove ~ExBx, then we should rightfully start with states of affairs. If it turns out there are 0 black dogs, we're comparing 1 with 2. If it turns out there's 1 black dog, we're comparing 3 with 4, and so on. In all such cases, how difficult it is to either confirm or disconfirm your claim, whichever the case may be, is completely independent of whether your claim is the negative one or the positive one. It depends, instead, entirely on what the state of affairs is. You do maximal work on rows 1 and 2. Of the rows shown you're on average doing minimal work on rows 7 and 8.

And again might I emphasize that it's not necessary when doing P to be "trying to prove ExBx" nor to be "trying to prove ~ExBx"; you can do P without "trying to" confirm either theory... one might call this "trying to figure out whether ExPx is true or ~ExPx is true". We might phrase doing such a thing as making neither a negative claim nor a positive one, yet taking on the burden regardless.

An existential vs its negation. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Sure. But generally speaking we agree that one of them is true, and one of them is false. And with the metric/method under consideration, we don't know which is which until either we find the black dog, or we searched all of the dog houses among the single set of dog houses.

I used 'black dog' only because it came into the discussion as an example. — TonesInDeepFreeze

How nice of you, but "black dog" only came into the discussion as an example because the discussion started to be about black dog as an example.

The point in the discussion I have recently been addressing is not questions of deductive determination, but rather empirical determination in a finite domain. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Okay, so let's talk about dogs then. What exactly is your problem with my table, as it applies to the metric we were discussing in regards to empirical determination in a finite domain?

The question was "Which is easier to prove: ExBx or ~ExBx ?" — TonesInDeepFreeze

No, that's not the question. The question is whether it's easier to prove a negative claim or a positive claim.

Here's how TMF phrased it in the OP:

Suppose a theist claims that god exists, and you being an atheist claims the contrary, god doesn't exist. If now you're asked to prove god doesn't exist, that would be proving a negative. — TheMadFool

Joe claims there's a God. George claims there's no God. The former is a positive claim. The latter is a negative claim. Which of those two things is easier to prove?

Now I state the God thing here because TMF did, to tie it to the topic, but we can be a bit more neutral with something like... Joe claims the Goldbach conjecture is true. George claims the Goldbach conjecture is false. Which of those two things is easier to prove?

The only way that question makes sense is to compare ExBx when it is true vs. ~ExBx when it is true, because if ExBx is false then there's no proof of it and if ~ExBx is false then there is no proof of it. — TonesInDeepFreeze

1. It is easier to prove that the Four Color Theorem is false than it is to prove that the Four Color Theorem is true.
2. It is easier to prove that the Four Color Theorem is false if it is false than it is to prove that the Four Color Theorem is true if it is true.

The former is the real topic... that's the thing you claim you can't make sense out of. The latter, as I understand it, is the thing you're claiming is the only thing that makes sense.

So if you want to claim this makes sense, explain this to me. I know the FCT is true, and I know the proof of it was incredibly difficult. But when you talk about this thing called the proof of FCT being false if it is false, what sensible thing are you comparing the FCT's proof of being true to exactly?

Now if you want to compare proving a false thing false to proving a true thing true, that makes sense. But you're not telling me that. You're trying to tell me that you can compare the proof of a true thing being false to the proof of it being true, or the proof of a false thing being true to the proof of it being false, or maybe that simply not knowing whether you're comparing the proof of a true thing being false to the proof of it being true or you're comparing the proof of a false thing being true to the proof of it being false makes sense out of it somehow. And, no, it doesn't.

Since attempting to let this die didn't work:

That chart seems to capture discovery not proof. — TonesInDeepFreeze

What the chart indicates is what the chart was intended to indicate. It sounds like you're spinning tales about what it indicates. I'm not sure those tales are meaningful.

Suppose someone says to you: — TonesInDeepFreeze

I'm not sure what that entire scenario is about.

"I have two stacks of photographs. — TonesInDeepFreeze

You're thinking about this wrong. Let's just as a device call every place that a dog could be a "dog house". So if we want to find out if there's a black dog, we need to search all of the dog houses. Here, a dog house is analogous to a photo. Likewise, all of the dog houses is our analog to a stack of photos. In other words, there is only one stack of photos.

I think you want to imagine the stacks of photos as possibilities. But I find it incredibly difficult to relate to what you think you're doing when you pick a stack of photos. We don't get to pick what the contents of the dog houses are; all we get to do is search them.

You can choose to prove ...and I pay you $500 ... — TonesInDeepFreeze

Your hypothetical reward system is all messed up. Guessing when you don't know should be worthless. Finding out should be valued. You have that exactly backwards... your reward system rewards only guessing and lucking up.

But, clearly, one should choose the best chance at having the shortest labor time - by choosing to prove there is a picture of a black dog. — TonesInDeepFreeze

You've yet to actually argue against the critique... given it's the same search being done on the same dog houses, it's the same amount of effort regardless of what you pick. Imagining rigged rewards for guessing when you don't know and lucking up doesn't change the fact that it's just those dog houses with those dogs in it that we search in, and that doesn't change no matter what we wish up to be true before we do the search.

In fact, why do you even need to pick one to do the search in the first place? Why not simply do the search?

You only hope something is not there when you're afraid of it. — Apollodorus

I hope that car is not still blocking my driveway by the time I head out.

You are delusional. — Apollodorus

I don't take that seriously.

I don't need to support anything and I don't care about your claims. — Apollodorus

Okay, so you don't care about my claims (though for some odd reason you replied anyway). But why then should you expect me to care about your unsupported claims? Do you not see how this is connected?

Or, if you don't expect me to care about your unsupported claims, then what exactly is your complaint with me? I've already told you I'm perfectly content with the fact that you are not concerned with being taken seriously (which is simply another way to spell "I don't care about your claims"). What's the purpose of this reply?

I told you many times you're wasting your time. — Apollodorus

Possibly. I gave you that reply before too.

Neither are you. — Apollodorus

You have a warped view of what's going on.

You have made a claim. You have not supported it. Therefore, your claim can be dismissed.

I have made a claim as well. I have claimed that you have not supported your claim. My claim is testable; had you offered support for theory, it would appear in the two pages of post history here on this board. That can be scanned in minutes. Such a scan reveals a lack of support for your claim.

How can you demand of others what you yourself are unable to provide? — Apollodorus

I don't really have to provide it; it's already here in the forum. Anyone can click on that "7", that "8", and that "9", and confirm what I saw for themselves... that you have offered no support for your opinion.

And I don't need to defend anything. — Apollodorus

Sure. But you don't need to be taken seriously either.

If all you're after is slinging your opinion onto the pages here, you're done. Does that suggest that I can just chock up all of your responses to me as just being bored and trolling? I'm actually fine with that.

Yeah, I know what your reading is but if it's wrong it's wrong. You can't make a wrong right. — Apollodorus

That does me no good. It's possible that I'm wrong, but the reading is direct, so it's justified. The justification from a straightforward reading of the text is also pretty solid... I'm not quote mining, and I'm following the precise chain of replies, including even the specific text you chose to quote.

So, what's your agenda? — Apollodorus

I've multiple agendas here. Dissuading bad epistemic practices is one.

Simply asking you to defend your original claim is another:

I believe that's a big element in atheism. Atheists are afraid of the thought of there being anything higher than themselves hence they hope there isn't. — Apollodorus

Where does this claim come from? What does it mean for it to be true? Under what conditions do we say it's true? Do those conditions hold? Under what conditions do we say it's false? Since you mentioned psychologists, I am not a psychologist, but as I'm aware we can actually test for fear responses... can we test fear responses for the thought of higher beings? Or we can sanity check this... what does "higher" even mean here... does it suggest atheists would be scared of SETI? If so, how come atheists in practice tend to be interested in SETI?

There are all kinds of things we could discuss to honestly explore the veracity of your claim; on both sides. Maybe there are experiments showing fight or flight response to religious iconography of particular sorts. Or maybe they don't; and maybe this indicates you're wrong. Those are the kinds of things an honest exploration in the veracity of the claim you made looks like.

Why not say something that makes sense for a change and then we carry on the conversation like two grown ups instead of resorting to kindergarten tricks that don't lead anywhere. — Apollodorus

...because you're not discussing it seriously. You're not saying "my opinion is backed by this psychology study". You're not explaining the fear response. You're not defining what you mean by a higher power.

You're spending all of your time asking what people's agendas are, and saying that 180 Proof's degree in psychology doesn't disprove anything. You're morphing your claim every post and trying to peg people to straw men versions of it. None of this has to do with the thing you originally claimed being true. And this, in my opinion that you acknowledged I'm entitled to, is because you're too busy trying to say what doesn't prove you wrong to be bothered by actually discussing why you should be treated seriously.

Nobody has to knock the legs out from under your theory if it doesn't have a leg to stand on in the first place.

Why not say something that makes sense for a change — Apollodorus

Why does it not make sense to you that in order to have your opinion treated seriously, you must first support it?

My reading is this:

I believe that's a big element in atheism. Atheists are afraid of the thought of there being anything higher than themselves hence they hope there isn't. — Apollodorus

I've known quite a few principled nonbelievers online and offline over the decades and none have resembled your disingenuous caricature — 180 Proof

People do tend to be reluctant to admit their own fears but that doesn't mean that those fears don't exist. Ask psychologists and they'll tel you. — Apollodorus

Those two things are separated by only one post in this thread; 180 Proof's post. The quote I have from 180 Proof is the exact quote you gave in your reply to him.

I read the antecedent of "those fears" is "of the thought of there being anything higher than themselves".

I find no reasonable reading of that where by "those fears":

So why deny it? — Apollodorus

...you simply mean an atheist's irrational fear of spiders. But I find it suspicious that you should pretend you did.

Why all of the tricks? Why the gaslighting attempts? What's so wrong with just supporting the claim you made?

As I said, you're wasting your time. — Apollodorus

That's possible.

I haven't noticed anyone "attacking you" at all so I've no idea what you're talking about. — Apollodorus

You're misinterpreting. Here's what you're doing:

Claiming that atheists have no hopes or fears is just irrational. — Apollodorus

...you're morphing what I did say into something easier to refute... you're doing this in reaction to being challenged. Nowhere did I make the claim that atheists have no hopes or fears.

Even you ought to realize that. But never mind. — Apollodorus

Of course I realize atheists have hopes and fears. They're just people.

But I also realize that you said this:

I believe that's a big element in atheism. Atheists are afraid of the thought of there being anything higher than themselves hence they hope there isn't. — Apollodorus

...there's a gigantic leap between an atheist having an irrational fear of spiders and hoping his favorite restaurant is still open, to it being a big part of atheism that atheists are afraid of the thought of there being something higher than themselves.

The thing you haven't justified is that thing about it being a big part of atheism that atheists are afraid of the thought of there being something higher than themselves.

Pretending that all you said was that sometimes atheists fear things isn't going to fly.

As for your "degree in cognitive psych" we can see of what value that is in proving your point. — Apollodorus

Avoid epistemic double standards... whatever burden you think the "other guy" has in proving you wrong had better be a burden you met yourself to make the claim in the first place.

That's the basic idea behind Hitchen's razor: "That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."

You don't get it, do you? I meant a professional psychologist not someone holding a degree in psychology. — Apollodorus

Professional psychologists hold degrees in psychology. You were arguing that the degree was irrelevant.

As I said, anyone can have a degree in anything. That doesn't mean anything. — Apollodorus

No, you're claiming that it doesn't mean anything. But of course it means something. I have a degree in math (minor) and computer science (major); in obtaining these, I have learned about math and computer science beyond the high school level. 180 Proof has a degree in cognitive psychology; that implies analogously that 180 Proof should have learned about those things in attaining his degree.

Yes, anyone can have a degree in anything. But degrees teach you things. That's relevant. But anyone can claim a group of professionals backs up their random internet guy theories. And that doesn't mean they actually do.

You fall in the same epistemic trap over and over and over. You must support the views you advance before they are worthy of being taken seriously. A proper, rational response to a challenge is to give support. You're not doing that. Your response to a challenge is to try to attack the challengers, not support your views.

You've got this whole thing backwards. Your opinions are worthless unless they are supported; a lack of proof of being wrong is not support. This is not about proving you wrong. This is about demonstrating you have something valuable to say in the first place.

And I've yet to see any such demonstration. You're too busy saying what doesn't prove you wrong to bother with reasons to believe you're right.

In my view, holding a "degree in cognitive psych" has nothing to do with anything. — Apollodorus

Wrong. In your view:

Ask psychologists and they'll tel you. — Apollodorus

...psychologists corroborate your story. You're being disingenuous.

It's also mighty suspicious that I've plainly and repetitively stated what's relevant here, and you went to this nonsense about proving your claim wrong; it's almost like you have a blind spot that you were the one appealing to psychologists.

Sorry, but you're running all over the place. What is on the table is that 180 Proof's degree in psychology is relevant to this:

Ask psychologists and they'll tel you. — Apollodorus

You offered a pretense of a rebuttal to this, but none of it had to do with what's on the table.

And it doesn't justify his objection to my suggestion that some atheists may be motivated by a feeling of fear. — Apollodorus

That's quite a different goal post than this:

I believe that's a big element in atheism. Atheists are afraid of the thought of there being anything higher than themselves hence they hope there isn't. — Apollodorus

Normally, when you hope for something not to happen, you do so out of fear of it happening. — Apollodorus

That doesn't quite sound correct to me. What is your reasoning behind it?

Does a degree in psych disprove that? — Apollodorus

In the particulars, that's not on the table (see above).

But the question is epistemically backwards. It is not necessary to disprove an unwarranted claim.

From the statement "I have a degree" it doesn't logically follow that atheists can't have a hope that there is no God or that they can't have a fear of the idea of God. — Apollodorus

Is this an attempt at the Chewbacca Defense?

180 Proof's degree in psychology is relevant to this:

Ask psychologists and they'll tel you. — Apollodorus