Is this acceptable?

I do wonder about the topic being a question, but I'm willing to critique your OP, provided it answers the debate question in the affirmative. If the debate focuses upon your answer and my critique thereof, we may only need three posts each. We could still reduce the response time to 72 hours.

Three is not enough. 1500 sounds good. We could shorten the response time to 72 hrs.

Three is not enough.

Three or five posts each?

You changed that... or I misread???

All that sounds good. Minimum/maximum word count per post?

Let's do it.

We need to agree on the debate topic/statement, then set the parameters, right? I'm attempting to get the ball rolling here...

I've offered a list of candidates. Perhaps you missed it?

I would be willing to argue in the affirmative for "Not all beliefs are about statements", "Beliefs are not always about statements", "Not all belief has propositional content", "Not all belief is an attitude towards a proposition", "Not all belief is an attitude towards a statement", "Not all belief consists of propositional attitude", "Not all belief consists of statements", "Not all belief consists of propositions"...

Or you could argue in the affirmative of any of these by removing the "not". — creativesoul

We also need some type of administrative intervention so as to set up the place. So, I suspect when you and I agree on the debate topic and the parameters of the debate, that the appropriate actions will be taken by the administrators to help facilitate it.

IF I were to open, my bit would be a copy-and-paste from my profile. So I'll ceed the opening post to creativesoul, who can address that profile.

As for definitions, the point of a philosophical debate can be, and I suspect in this case will be, setting out a definition.

SO I suggest we start with creative pointing to my errors in the profile. — Banno

My esteemed and revered interlocutor, for whom I hold much respect, you are talking about what using the term "belief" requires. You are talking about all of the different ways that you are using the term.

I could critique that terminological usage in terms of it's coherency and/or lack of self-contradiction. If it is consistent, it lacks self-contradiction, and as a result I ought be able to swap any particular use of the term with the definition offered(whether that be by name or description) and not suffer a loss in meaningful content or arrive at mutually exclusive definitions/senses of the term "belief"(self-contradiction).

That would be a very short debate.

I would be willing to argue in the affirmative for "Not all beliefs are about statements", "Beliefs are not always about statements", "Not all belief has propositional content", "Not all belief is an attitude towards a proposition", "Not all belief is an attitude towards a statement", "Not all belief consists of propositional attitude", "Not all belief consists of statements", "Not all belief consists of propositions"...

Or you could argue in the affirmative of any of these by removing the "not".

Millions of doses were purchased by the federal government prior to the FDA approval. Should this be concerning?

If you want me to critique the profile, that would end up being an entirely different debate.

Ok Banno. So, in order to do this proper(and I'm certain we can), we'll need to get approval from the mods and/or administrators, set the parameters of the debate(the actual debate topic, who opens, length of posts, timeframe between replies, and whether or not there is a hard fast end). In addition, the administrators will need to create a place for us to proceed without interruption from those following the debate. The other site had two threads, one for participants following and discussing the debate, and one specifically reserved for the exclusive use of the participants.

The title of the debate proposal has a few folk hereabouts worried about the ambiguity of key terms. Given the 'nature' of language use, I think some ambiguity is inevitable, and that that ambiguity is part of what makes debates interesting. I'd be surprised if you didn't want to retain a certain amount of ambiguity, and that's ok by me.

However, has since suggested a change in the topic sentence, and given his own reasons for doing so. From where I sit, it doesn't seem to negatively effect/affect my approach to a debate about belief content.

The only real sticking point that I see regards your earlier suggestion that you would basically copy and paste your profile here as an opening argument, or that that's what I ought respond to in my opening argument. The problem is that there's nothing in your profile about the content of belief. So, there's really nothing for me to respond to regarding the debate topic.

So, perhaps it's best if we take the advice/suggestion of fdrake and debate "Beliefs are always about statements"?

What do you think?

As to the potential long-term effects, we'll probably never know. Beyond a few years, the compounding factors mount up in any cohort making isolation of subtle effect difficult, if not impossible. With a small enough cohort it might be possible, but the more people involved in the first wave of take-up, the more confounding factors become likely to materialise in that group from possibly external sources. — Isaac

Isn't that the reason for long term studies? I mean, isn't it the case that the reason we'll probably never know(this time around) is because we've neglected public safety protocols that have been in place for decades because we already know that such measures are necessary to insure we're doing everything we can to provide the safest possible treatment(s)?

The OP is meant as a debate proposal, specifically towards . Although, we've yet to have hammered out a few details. That ought be done in the other proposal thread, because it seems that that's where we're proceeding.

Perfect. So, we have a topic. Aren't you the one arguing the affirmative?

Perhaps it's been discussed heretofore, but shouldn't we all have very serious concerns over the drastic shortening of the duration of the field trials of the vaccine?

This 'warp speed' notion...

How can science shorten field trial periods from multiple years to less than a year, and remain confident that any significant, possibly deadly, side effects from a treatment have shown themselves?

If there are side effects that do not show immediately, but rather take years, and a very broad sampling size, to show themselves, then it is literally impossible to know about them over a much shorter duration with smaller less diverse sample sizes...



May I ask what your opinion is on this?

, get in the ring...

This one...

Come on . Here's your big chance to officially "mop the floor" with my ideas...

:kiss:

Anyone interested in a more formal approach to this? It's the contention underwriting a few recent threads.

My first response was meant to point out the appeal to omniscience inherent/implicit in so many arguments regarding "seeing the world as it is". My second was meant to point out that we certainly can see some things as they are.

Now I'll point out yet another issue with the idea... it's untenability.

In order to know that we cannot see the world as it is, we must know the world as it is, the world as we see it, and the differences between the two.

The cat is on the mat? The cup is in the cupboard? The lights are on the Christmas tree? I'm typing on my computer? We're talking about whether or not we can see some things as they are?

I conclude that nobody can see the world as it is. — Daemon

Need we be able to see everything in the world as it is in order to be able to see anything as it is?

Meaning existed prior to our knowledge and/or awareness of our own thought and belief about the world and/or ourselves(conscious experience), and did so as a direct result of creatures capable of drawing correlations between different things doing so.
— creativesoul

So meaning has become a thing; How sad. — Banno

"Meaning" is a noun. All nouns are persons, places, or things. That's how English works. Your response is cowardly.

All belief is meaningful to the creature forming/having the belief. — creativesoul

Do you agree?

The linguistic turn ought not result in forgetting that all sorts of stuff existed prior to the accounting practices specifically designed as a means to explain them. Meaning existed prior to our knowledge and/or awareness of our own thought and belief about the world and/or ourselves(conscious experience), and did so as a direct result of creatures capable of drawing correlations between different things doing so. Many many correlations were drawn between different directly perceptible things long before we learned how to talk about it via language use.

Some correlations were and continue being drawn between directly perceptible aspects of language use, and had to have been, in order for language creation and subsequent use.

If our accounting practices regarding how things become meaningful to us cannot be used to bridge the gap between language less conscious experience and conscious experience informed by language, then we cannot possibly hope to offer an adequate account of belief, whereas what counts as being "adequate" would require building an explanatory bridge between non linguistic language less belief, beliefs formed from simple naming and descriptive practices, and the uber complex metacognitive varieties of belief products like logical notation, predicate calculus, general historical accounts, and metaphilosophy.

When applied to cats, belief as propositional attitude bears a striking resemblance to the little man that wasn't there.

All belief is meaningful to the creature forming/having the belief.

Where's the acceptable theory of meaning at?

Where's the explicit account of how meaning first emerges onto the world stage in it's most basic identifiable form such that it continues to grow and/or evolve over a sufficient enough time period so as to provide enough groundwork, a semantically rich enough basis, for us to be able to begin naming and describing all of the different aspects of own personal experiences as well as getting the simple language less ones right?

It's certainly not found in semiotics, qualia, belief as propositional attitudes, or meaning as use, although all of them are helpful regarding certain complexity levels throughout the ongoing process, from conception through times like these.

a Reagan — were themselves the creators of the ideas they came up with — Rafaella Leon

:rofl:

What does his belief consist in? — fdrake

Exactly.

Sure. All sorts of definitions for "proposition". I do not know, nor understand them all. Banno's use was the one under consideration, as it pertains to belief and statements thereof.

I've since dropped "mental", and "state of mind" from my account. Seems to work much better. Also dropped "objects", for the reasons given elsewhere(rejection of subject/object).

Art doesn't like it when you call her by by name...

Sure she can, but I wouldn't advise doing so.

"Qualia" is an empty concept, if it is completely private and ineffable.

A proposition is a state of affairs. — frank

I've seen the term rendered as such before. I find it tenuous. A proposition is proposed, it seems. As a result, it requires a creature capable of proposing something; language use. While I do not care too much for rendering with "states of affairs", it seems pretty clear that they do not require language users. At least, not all of them.

Expectation(the kind that is of interest here) is belief about what has not yet happened, belief about what's going to happen, and it's based upon belief about what has happened, and/or is happening. It's a good direction to go in, particularly regarding language less creature's beliefs. It's not always belief regarding statements/propositions.

The "snow is white" example almost makes the point that not all belief is regarding a statement; that not all belief has propositional content; that not all belief is an attitude towards a statement/proposition. The problem with the example is that it is not a belief that can be had by a language less creature.

Some belief is about what happened, is happening, or what will happen. Some belief about that does not consist of language, nor is it existentially dependent upon language. The fire example serves to make the point better.

A language less creature can learn that touching fire causes pain. The belief that touching the fire caused the subsequent pain is not an attitude towards the proposition "touching fire caused pain". It's a belief about what just happened. The proposition/statement is a part of our report, not a part of the creature's belief. All belief is meaningful to the creature having it. This crucial point gets glossed over and/or outright neglected far too often. We always attribute meaning, and form meaningful thought and belief(conscious experience as a result) by virtue of drawing correlations between different things. In the fire example, the creature draw correlations between the fire, the touching, and the pain. It has conscious experience of being burnt by fire. It learns, and subsequently believes that touching fire caused(causes) pain.

There is no language necessary in order for this to actually happen. No propositions. No statements. There is meaningful conscious experience, thought, belief, the attribution and/or recognition of causality. And... the belief is true(corresponds to what happened). Touching the fire did cause the pain. We know that, as does the creature, despite the creature's inability to say it. It formed meaningful, well-grounded, and true belief about what happened.

Are there sides? Shit. I'm clueless, I seem to be arguing against both.

:wink:

In order for conscious experience to have been able to have gradually emerged over an evolutionary timeline, it must have been able to have begun at some simple, basic, and/or rudimentary level of complexity, and continue to grow and evolve in it's complexity over sufficient time and repetition into something like exactly what we're doing here and now.
— creativesoul

So, would you describe your overall approach as scientific realism? — Wayfarer

Nah. I don't do 'isms'.

I recently posted an article on 15 years of research that showed that humans really aren't like other animals in terms of memory storage.

Human memory is stored in an overlapping jumbled way compared to other animals like us.

An obvious speculation would be that our ability to abstract is related to this anomoly. So human thought may be truly unique in the animal world (now that our cousins are all extinct). — frank

I actually agree that our thought is unique in the animal world, as a direct result of written language, but not regarding everything prior to.

So if your goal is to say something about evolution, you might have to be tentative.

I've not read the article mentioned. Do you find that anything I've written stands in conflict?

...you are taking a piece of language and supposing that because we talk as if it refers to something, there must be something to which it refers. You are reifying belief. — Banno

Pots and kettles for a purveyor of belief as propositional attitude.

That's not what a reification fallacy is anyway, and anyone whose read what I've wrote here ought know that I'm not treating belief as if it is physical or concrete.