But pointedly, you didn't. — Banno

As I said, I'll keep any additional thoughts between Bitter Crank and myself.

Hey, I liked him. He just could not control himself. — Banno

As I said, I'll keep my thoughts between @Bitter Crank and myself.

banned for low quality posts. — Hanover

@Prishon could have been a really good part of this community. I've said it before. I'll say it again. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves.

I include you in that @Banno and @Gregory

I'll send a PM to @Bitter Crank and tell him what I really think of you all.

and any lack of quality is made up for in quantity.. — Banno

Often, a large number of posts and threads means low quality. Generally, that hasn't been the case with @Prishon. You, who's primary contribution has generally been off-hand, smart-ass snipes at other people's posts, probably shouldn't be the one to complain.

You wanna talk physics? Have a GOOD discussion, dialectical discourse? You seem to know about it. — Prishon

Gregory is trying to piss you off. Seems like he's trying to get you banned by harassing you. You should stop responding.

There is no Newtonian spacetime. Newton kept space and time separate — Gregory

Why are you harassing @pirshon. Generally, his posts are higher quality than yours.

Send me the link to this past discussion so that I can get up to speed. — Hanover

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/1560/deathmatch-objective-reality-vs-the-tao/p1

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/10427/my-favorite-verses-in-the-tao-te-ching/p1

And many others.

millions of years prior to the evolution of language existed in some non-existent state — Hanover

By George, he's got it!

This is something I've discussed many times on the forum. If you haven't seen those posts, now is not the time to go into it.

The fact that they both attempt to answer the same questions doesn't make them the same fields. — Hanover

I think this just points out the arbitrariness of your philosophy/religion distinction.

Reliance upon sacred texts, deities, and the supernatural are well within the purview of religion, but not of philosophy. — Hanover

One definition of "philosophy" from the web - "The study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline." About half the people in the world are followers of Abrahamic religions. For most of those people, you can't discuss those subjects without also talking about God.

To be clear, I'm not saying that all philosophies are religious or are religions. Would I say that all religions are philosophies?... My answer is a tentative yes. I need to think about that some more.

...no one suggests that the world did not exist prior to language. — Hanover

Well...you know...I kind of do. I acknowledge that that way of seeing things is a metaphysical proposition, but then, everything in this thread so far has been metaphysics. As usual, when I say "metaphysics," I mean neither true nor false.

Prishon say: pain in the aaaaass. Auw! — Prishon

I assumed you would take that as a compliment.

Don't be a troll, Prishon. If there is any substance in your answers, it is not in your answers. Implied? But on this topic, nothing that can be substantively implied. — tim wood

@Prishon is a pain in the ass, but he's not a troll. Calling someone a troll is just another example of the malady I was referring to - delegitimizing an argument without good reason because you don't like it.

Partially. It does indeed deal with creation. — Prishon

I meant what I said and I said what I meant.

Not true. — Prishon

Is too.

Religion doesn't "deal with," at least in any respectable sense, it instead imposes upon. So let's set religion out apart and away from this discussion, until and unless it earn its way in. — tim wood

No further questions. I rest my case.

I don't agree that "religion is a philosophical matter." — tim wood

Religion generally deals with issues of the origins and nature of reality, ontology, so, of course it's philosophy. You have a history of kicking areas of study you don't have any respect for out of their appropriate place. Religion is not philosophy, psychology is not science, [joke]ice dancing is not a sport, Mitt Romney is not a Republican, bleach is not an appropriate treatment for the Covid 19 virus, Velveeta is not really food.[/joke]

Here is the terminal point of "beginnings" where religion finds its existential reality: the impossibility of conceiving beyond the boundaries of the thought that makes beginnings possible by conceiving of them, for what is possible that cannot be thought? — Constance

philosophy, in the minds of many or most, has no place in the dark places where language cannot go, but this is a Kantian/Wittgensteinian (Heidegger, too, of course; though he takes steps....) legacy that rules out impossible thinking, and it is here where philosophy has gone so very wrong: Philosophy is an empty vessel unless it takes on the the original encounter with the world, which is prior to language, and yet, IN language, for language is in the world. — Constance

The idea that reality inhabits "the dark places where language cannot go," is pretty common. Kant's noumena, Lao Tzu's Tao, Schopenhauer's will are all grappling with what comes during "the original encounter with the world."

Because climatologists make no claim that is so categorical and clear that their whole theory rests upon it, they can endlessly pile excuse upon excuse with their central claim remaining untouched. This is not science. — Neri

The principle I generally endorse - If you have to make a decision about a scientific issue where there is uncertainty, decide on the basis of the scientific consensus if there is one. Since more than 95% of scientists with relevant expertise agree that there is climate change related to man-made global warming which will have a significant negative impact on millions or billions of people, the consensus is clear.

Also - a quibble. You have made claims that climate science is wrong and perhaps that some climate scientists are not objective in their work, but you've provided no valid argument that climate science is not science.

...unconcerned with the “what there is”, rather I am concerned with what is done. — Ennui Elucidator

This is a good description of my thoughts in regard to truth.

The object is never accessible or knowable regardless of your metaphysics and so it isn’t helpful as anything besides a linguistic convenience to even make reference to it. — Ennui Elucidator

All language, thought, and conceptualization is "linguistic convenience to even make reference" to something.

Yes, you can detect intrinsic curvature on a sphere, even if it is not embedded in 3D space. Angles in a triangle won't sum up to 180 degrees. — SophistiCat

After the discussion yesterday, I thought about this subject a lot, asking myself questions. The article you linked answered them all. Good article. Thanks.

Just looked this up in Wikipedia:

The sum of the angles of a triangle on a sphere is 180°(1 + 4f), where f is the fraction of the sphere's surface that is enclosed by the triangle.

I think that means that the geometry of a triangle would depend on it's size. Not sure (at all).

what is a flat triangle on a round paper? — Winner568

Do you mean a three-dimensional spherical surface?

By furthering an idea of how a 2-dimensional flat-lander could realize how to calculate the hypotonus of a triangle. — Winner568

I don't have much experience at 3D geometry, but I don't think the flat-lander would be able to know that. I definitely might be wrong. She would measure the distance between the vertices of the triangle as straight lines. The Pythagorean Theorem would be the same as for a 2D surface. If she wanted to measure the length of the sides of the triangle on the sphere, she would need to calculate great circle lengths, which go through the center of the sphere. In order to do that, she would have to know the radius of the sphere. If I remember correctly, the sum of angles on a triangle drawn on a sphere is not 180 degrees.

I am really not sure this is true.

We had a nice example of it a while back when a poster posted a thread about ad hominems, asking questions about it. Some posters suggested some literature on the topic, for the OP's questions are readily addressed in it. But the OP refused to read that literature, and claimed that suggesting that they read that was an ad hominem. — baker

I believe I am the poster being referenced here. The thread was my "Ad Hominem, Ad Schominem," which I think was a good one. It ended two months ago. Here's a link to the place in the discussion where @baker had uncomplimentary things to say about me.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/558201

If Baker's thoughts about my lack of critical thinking skills were correct, which I don't think they were, they still would not be an example of the Dunning Kruger effect.

That would be metaphysics (rather than epistemology) and I don’t talk about such things. — Ennui Elucidator

Many, including me, include epistemology in metaphysics. It doesn't make sense for them to be separate. In my understanding, ontology and epistemology, what there is and how we know what there is, are inseparable.

we shouldn’t confuse acting as if for the sake of utility with either belief or argument. — Ennui Elucidator

I'm not sure, but maybe you're making the same argument I am from the other side. I'm saying knowledge is information we use to make decisions and act. It seems like you're saying there is no knowledge, just the decisions and acts themselves. Or maybe not.

not because we know that the Eiffel Tower is in Paris, but because our best information makes it far more likely to find it there (if at all) rather than New York. — Ennui Elucidator

Now you're just playing with language. Knowledge is provisionally verified information.

epistemological nihilism — Ennui Elucidator

I had never heard that term before. Thanks for the education.

epistemological nihilism makes the claim that no knowledge is possible while solipsism makes the claim that only one thing can be known. — Ennui Elucidator

Actually, for me, this is a more interesting entry into the subject of knowledge than the one in the OP. It highlights the issues I find most important. On the one hand, of course there is knowledge. Wait a second ..... See, I was just knowing that the capital of France is Paris. I guess your question is whether "valid knowledge" is a contradiction in terms. For me, that just brings us back to my contention that knowledge is inextricably tied up with decision making. Knowledge, truth, is a tool we use to make decisions and act. If I decide to go to the capital of France, I will definitely make my flight reservations to Paris and not Kabul.

Where in my writing did I make the claim that something can be known, let alone the claim that only one thing can be known or that the only knowable thing is that my mind exists? — Ennui Elucidator

I admit, when I first read your previous response to me, I thought your idea sounded like "I think therefore I am and that's all that is," which is pretty much solipsism. Your formulation sounds like solipsistic solipsism, or Solipsism^2. Nothing exists but me, and I don't exist either.

I long ago came to peace with the idea that non-referential indexicals and other tricks of language account for much of the problem of “my mind” and that my version of “mind” is both constructed and re-constructed so seamlessly that even if I conquered the idea that there was something to “I”, I’d hardly know what it is and would find that anything to be said about it is conjecture. — Ennui Elucidator

And yet, you talk about yourself all the time. In my formulation, the fact that you act on the basis that "I" is a meaningful phenomenon means that it is.

Really? In your life's experience women are the reasoners and welcome reason, more so or equally with men? — tim wood

Shhhhhh. I know sometimes it's hard for old folks to remember we shouldn't say everything we think out loud.

Aka woman-bane. — tim wood

Nothing like a little misogyny to lighten up the mood.

Whether a statement is a lie, is not determined by time or the objective truth of the matter asserted. It's a lie if the declarant thought it was a lie when stated. It's the subjective understanding of the declarant. One can be wrong and not have lied, or be a liar. One can state an objective truth but be a liar if they thought they were lying. — James Riley

Sometimes, when I disagree with my wife and she's pissed at me, she says "That's right, I'm a liar." I say, "No, you're just wrong."

The price of doubting everything is incoherence. — Banno

You're right. I overstated the case. In this case, that's a sin for someone who sometimes calls himself a pragmatist. I'll restate:

On a practical level, there is uncertainty in most of what we call facts. The important thing when making a decision is to understand the level of uncertainty and balance that with an understanding of the consequences of being wrong.

I don't hold the opinion that facts can be used pragmatically when needed, in case they are needed, and how they are needed. — Shawn

Ultimately, what value do facts and the truth have other than providing information to allow making effective decisions?

My problem is that I think my assent (provisional or otherwise) adds nothing to the conversation of “is true” because the state-of-affairs is what it is regardless. Do I believe “a fact is true”? Why invest so much emotion or mental energy? I’d go with, “Does acting as if appear to further my agenda more than acting as if not?” — Ennui Elucidator

I'm ok with some of this, although I take a more pragmatic, less cynical, view. It's not that I want to "further my agenda." It's that I need to make decisions and to do that effectively, I need a good understanding of the uncertainty of the information I am using.

Facts don’t matter, truth is meaningless, and belief is an aside. — Ennui Elucidator

This is not nihilism, it's solipsism. Not the same thing.

This is something I'm unsure of. Many users already stated that they consider facts to be true based out of necessity. You seem to be saying that facts are contingent on circumstances or situations that allow them to be true, am I reading you correctly? — Shawn

It is undeniable that there is uncertainty in everything we call a fact. No matter how well-established it is, it might turn out not to be true. I'm not talking about radical Cartesian uncertainty. I'm talking about common, regular old uncertainty. We always have to make our decisions based on imperfect knowledge. Which is the fundamental problem with JTB - justified true belief is talking about perfect knowledge, which doesn't exist. In every aspect of our lives we have to make decisions based on imperfect, uncertain knowledge.

Taking a somewhat different tack, here is one of my favorite quotes from Stephen Jay Gould:

In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.'

Knowledge can only ever be provisional.

I'm not sure if that answers your question.

When does a fact establish itself as knowledge? — Shawn

Facts become knowledge when they are needed. When they are used. You can't know whether or not a piece of information has been adequately justified until you know what it will be used for. Until you know the consequences of being wrong. At that point - when you are making a decision about a future action, you have to determine whether or not you can use that information. When you decide you can, it is knowledge.

And welcome to the forum.

Seems to me you are equating abstraction with generalization. Are they the same thing? I don't think so, but I'm not sure.

I think the real generalization in your example is the chemist recognizing, based on his own and others' past experience that 1) sunlight can degrade chemical substances and 2) opaque containers can help prevent that degradation. I'm sure whatever decision was made wouldn't be made based on a single sample. There would certainly be a large enough number to allow a robust evaluation of performance, including statistics. They would probably try with several materials, levels of opacity, intensity of light, etc. They might also try to rule out other factors, e.g. temperature.

You are mistaken, again. Neither agitated nor angry, just not into wasting my time. You’ve decided not to engage and so mock instead, thats fine, it was amusing but inevitably boring. — DingoJones

You're kind of a nasty arguer, snotty and condescending. Insulting. I've looked at some of your other posts so I know it's not just with me. It's kind of your thing. So, yes. I mock you because 1) you deserve it and 2) being straight-up with you doesn't seem to work.

Solution - If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything. I'll do the same.

Aww. Geez. There you go getting all agitated and angry again. We should really stop having these discussions if they're going to upset you so much.

This discussion reminds me of Godwin's Law. It used to be a way to throw shade. — James Riley

This is exactly the kind of rhetoric that lead to the persecution of intellectuals in the Third Reich.

Yes, but I thought the point of Dunning Kruger was eaxh person’s assessment of their own capabilities, not your assenssmanr of their capabilities. — Joshs

The only way the D-K effect is meaningful is if a person's competence is a personal characteristic with some more or less independent existence.

how has your assessment of others skills been shaped by your own skill development? Before you learnt engineering or cabinetry , how might your judgement of others talents in those arenas differed? Would you disagree with the idea that how much you know influences your opinion on others’ abilities? — Joshs

Here is the T Clark theory of competence - The primary skill required for the development of competence is the ability to recognize high quality endeavor. If you don't know it when you see it, you can't do it right. That ability is (can be?) a non-subject-specific skill, i.e. it is (may be?) possible to recognize competence as such without detailed knowledge of the subject matter.

All of that was noted and rebutted in my initial comment. — DingoJones

Nunh unh.

I never offered an estimation of your motives for your opinion — DingoJones

This is a flat out falsehood. I quote:

its a cherished opportunity to push back with some sort of disdain for psych terms — DingoJones

All in all, I think my response was much cleverer than yours. Did you notice how I accused you of being subject to the D-K effect - twice - but I did it just using plain language. I-R-O-N-Y!!! In your face!!