Yeah, I couldn't hope to express how high the cost many soldiers pay is. I think many of them even have trouble expressing it, which kind of hints towards it being gratuitous and awful. Because gratuitous, awful things are often difficult to express.

Did we honestly expect that? Like I'm sure there are men who have been drafted and that served as soldiers that then became philosophers, or were philosophers concurrently, but those two things are very different. I will say this, however: the ability to interpret and execute orders would be right up a philosopher's alley. Verbal reasoning > most other things a soldier that deals with orders needs.

I had to google that to see if you weren't messing with me with those book titles. I'm sure she gives the topic the respect it deserves.



I would say that they are definitely not treated like expendable cannon fodder by any respectable leader. And if they are being treated as such it is not directly stated. That is antithetical to winning. They might have to put their lives on the line, and everyone is basically expendable in war, including leaders, but cannon fodder? That is generally not the right way to look at it.

And the grunt is not paid commensurate with what they do - almost always imo. And they are the ones putting their asses on the line.

If you don't understand what is attractive to many young men and women about picking up a rifle and fighting for their country, which definitely isn't the pay, then you need to get in touch with what it means to not be a nerd, nerd.

Furthermore, I would love to hear from anyone who has served in the military. Please tell me if you think I'm wrong or right, or just an idiot. Or just say anything you want, really.

I just thought I'd clarify a few things: when I use the term "grunt", I mean it in the most loving way possible. I think anyone who serves as a low-ranking soldier is worthy of just as much, if not more, respect and veneration as their leaders.

To any former or current low-ranking soldiers reading this: I have none of the training you have and will likely never have to put myself in harm's way like you may have had to or may have to. The point of this post is to emphasize that what wins wars is the soldiers, like what I quoted Napolean as saying. Sorry if I offended you.

That all being said, I definitely do believe that trusting in well-trained, competent soldiers is always better than rigidly adhering to the plans of brilliant tacticians - because "everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face." Or something like that.

I don't think the future of warfare will be akin to a chess game played by brilliant minds or strong AI. The future of warfare lies in the men and women fighting in the trenches, and victory in investing in the individual warfighter. Of course, brilliant tacticians are always great, and AI handling logistics or something would be instrumental in winning any war. But when it comes down to it, the side that correctly addresses and modifies the vulnerable, human element of warfare is the side that will win.

Did anyone imply that there are no soldiers that have become - or are - philosophers? I can easily see many soldiers being or becoming philosophers, as it requires a similar amount of discipline - if reapplied to thinking deeply about things. Jesse Hamilton looks like a cool dude.

edit: actually, I think many soldiers do think deeply about things, if not the kind of things we associate with academic philosophy.

double edit: such as duty, how to conduct oneself, what it means to sacrifice, how to readjust to living in society after seeing combat, etc.

Yeah, I was hoping for the same thing.



It would be a better comparison if we were given orders and were being shot at, like what might happen to an actual, low-ranking soldier.

I guess his intentions are not obvious - nor do they really matter, as he's not even alive to be derogated. We might as well interpret him as we please, I suppose.

Yeah. Great post. Kipling isn't really my favorite for a number of reasons, but that one is good.

edit: you added a part after I said I liked it, you cad. I guess I still think it's good.

I am familiar with many soldiers adopting the label as a badge of honor, not as a derogatory term, and I'm kind of seeking to make the term attractive again.

So it is false because we do have reasons, at least according to you?

And yes, I understand that just because you accept it needs no reasons does not mean that you believe it is true.

If that is indeed what you were trying to do there, that is.

No. Just because one does not make mention of P actually existing in expressing why they think P is true does not mean we shouldn't posit P.

You make the argument yourself that God need not be invoked directly as responsible for our intuitions - that they may be derived from natural selection - but nonetheless posit that God is the only way to understand why we have reasons - specifically reasons to believe that we have reasons to believe things, such as that our intuitions actually are guided by truthful sensory perception and reflect an external reality.

This is not the same as what you just proposed to me.

So continues the trend of me totally missing the point of an OP. Got a little ahead of myself there.

This is one of your better arguments if I'm understanding it right. However:

Well, if we do not need to posit any reasons to believe things, then Ockham's razor tells us not to do so. — Bartricks

seems to miss. We have reason to believe things because we are capable of perceiving things and then adapting ourselves or changing the world based on those perceptions, thus generating meaning in the process in our suitably developed brains. You continually interact with this forum because you derive meaning from doing so, and thus have good reason to believe that, according to Ockham's Razor, your interactions with said forum are worthwhile.

So even if we don't need to posit reasons to believe things, I think we are justified in doing so merely because we, as humans, can create meaning in ways that are not totally governed by mere intuition. I think you and I just disagree about what the source of that is.

I mean, do you really think that early humans actually operated purely based off of intuition? I think human nature has a strong analytical aspect, and probably always has, and that it can be explained in terms of evolution minus any hocus pocus about God guiding us with divine subtlety.

The argument made by the Students for Fair Admissions seems misguided.

I don’t see how no one can be harmed regardless of whether affirmative action is enacted; many different students are considered, but there is a limited number of spots; someone is going to get in, and some other number of people will not. While ideally this selection process would be meritocratic, I don’t see any real, honest-to-god meritocracies outside of the gym. And it isn’t even perfect there. The burden of proof is on them to show that the selection process would be meritocratic if Harvard hadn't instituted the Asian cap.

Thus, I think it is stupid to raise an argument about how it is unfair that someone got selected over you; it is unfair for everybody minus the winner unless it considers every single relevant factor, which would be impossible. For example: you might be a math genius with a lack of social skills. You would be at home with the math researchers, but you don’t get a spot because some sly socialite really makes an impression on their interviewer. Or maybe English isn’t your first language. Or maybe you are gay and the interviewer is a bigot. All factors that could lead to an unfair outcome.

Unless schools want to come out with a clear explanation for their selection processes, the best solution seems to me to be focusing on the development of a (more) sophisticated selection process that takes into account myriad factors, including the likelihood of success of the student benefiting from the affirmative action, whether or not they will be able to contribute to research, etc. I don’t know how much resources would need to be dumped into this, but I think it would be worth it.

Of course, if schools came out with information about their selection processes they could be gamed, but overall, I think if they were transparent enough they could achieve the efficacy necessary to solve this issue once and for all. So really transparency is the answer imho.

Thanks, man. Do I really have to read all the stuff before Enderton? I want to get to the meat of it right away, but if I really have to...

I'm obviously in too deep here, I'll need to check out some actual mathematical logic books or something. Could you offer a starting point maybe? I have the Book of Proof.

Potentially good example, thanks. But:

I disagree on the argument not making sense deductively (disregarding the hidden premise of the argument)*. While Aristotle might be the only person who is the unique collection of all the traits he possesses, he still belongs to a number of sets according to those traits, unless I'm just in ignorance of the way Socrates is treated by Aristotle. He is, for instance, a man, but I don't think that needs to be assumed up front before the argument is made.

*There needs to be a premise saying that not all men are Socrates, or it doesn't make sense.

However, I think I see what you are saying: Socrates is unique insofar as we cannot treat him as just a man; he is not assumed to be a subset of anything, so, therefore, because of the second premise, we are no longer dealing with sets, or "all" and "some" statements, which goes against the way Aristotle did logic.

So, while this argument might make sense deductively, it doesn't make sense as part of a larger schema.

Formally, an argument is merely an ordered pair <G P> where G is a set of statements and P is a statement. G is the set of premises and P is the conclusion.

An argument is valid if and only if there is no model in which every member of G is true but P is false. So 'validity of an argument' is a semantical notion. — TonesInDeepFreeze

What could be said about an argument, A, whose premises include the entire set of the correct premises of sound argument B, and has the same conclusion as B, but the conclusion is unsound for A, potentially because of added steps or premises? Doesn't that give a model in which every member of G could be true but the conclusion, P, be false?

Or what if there is some sort of recursive step in a valid model, an instance in which correct premises are applied to correct premises in such a way that the conclusion P of argument G becomes false even though all the premises stay true? Would that not be a model that would defy the formal definition?

I'm no expert on proofs, I hope I got that right.

I get that, I'm talking about a way to determine if said theorem can be understood by observing the proof. I do not deny the fact that the proof would be a function of certain foundational axioms if it is true, thus meaning the proof is derivable given those axioms. What I'm talking about is like looking in through a window that may or may not be there on something that we know is there (the proof).

Interesting. What if it applied conversely and allowed us to determine that the proof behind a principle or theorem assumed to be true couldn't be observed or determined?

Thanks. You basically answered my question.

If there was a way to determine if it is possible at all to observe or determine the proof behind a certain unproven but assumedly correct principle or theorem, would that be valuable?

Is it possible to break down a deductively valid mathematical theorem into its constituent parts without knowing the actual argument that is going to be used to prove it? In other words: what if the reasoning cannot be observed at all but we know it's (correct) constituent parts when synthesized add up to a deductively valid argument?

I feel like it exists.

It isn't so much a reference to lexical semantics and whatnot, but that might matter too.

I mean we know the premises, but don't know the format of the argument. Such as whether it is modus tollens or ponens (if you couldn't just guess between those two based on the premises and conclusion).

If all the numbers in your calculations are such that they cancel out and leave you with a nice whole number answer, you're (almost) guaranteed to have solved the problem correctly. — Agent Smith

Assuming a more complex math problem, I think you would mean if the variables cancel out and you are left with an integer? Or maybe a rational number?

If you do mean whole numbers, the set of whole numbers is a countably infinite set, so just coming up with a single whole number doesn't guarantee a whole lot.

Why doesn't this rule apply to real life scenarios? Shouldn't we be going :chin: huh? when after trying to calculate some constants in math and science we find their values to be rather unwieldy/cumbersome/awkward like, for example, the numbers ππ and ee? — Agent Smith

What is unwieldy/cumbersome/awkward about $\lim _{n\to \infty }\left(1+{\frac {1}{n}}\right)^{n}.$? Just because there is no magical logic gate in your calculator than can represent $e$ as a ratio of two integers, or CAS that can compute it algebraically, doesn't mean there is something wrong there.

That thread did little to elucidate anything; the only thing I saw that was relevant was the discussion of what it is "like" to be oneself holistically and whether or not one considers that to be coherent and thus a useful construct.

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Got it.

You just linked me to this page.

Can you expand on what you mean by "incoherent"? And what is it with respect to? Propositions? Arguments? Sentences? Mathematical models? Experimental data?

Can't. We would never be able to tell if a being that came to us was just ultra-powerful, or truly omnipotent. A sufficiently powerful being could just seem omnipotent.

At a 45 degree angle to piss off the motorists, obviously.

Any way I please, I imagine.

Really God could make me have any brain-state, but that doesn't mean that all of those brain-states are the same.

You need to explain why omnipotence implies that God cannot deliberately select a measurable course of action. God could know that if they stimulate my brain the right ways, I'll black out and smack my face against my desk. Or they could stimulate my brain so that I feel intense pleasure. I perceive those things, so, to me at least, the consequences of God's actions are measurable. Or they could do anything to my brain, and I will likely perceive it, and, thus, it is measurable to me.

Why can't God walk with measure?

It was a joke.

Exactly. And having no measures means impotency. — EugeneW

So why wouldn't God's actions be measurable? It's like the walking/circle example I gave. Infinite choices doesn't imply that one cannot deliberately choose a course of action, provided there are parameters or measurable consequences.