Regarding my conversation with S., in this thread, just for the record, that conversation ended by S. being asked what he meant, and being unable to tell what he meant.

Michael Ossipoff

9 Sa

a dim reflection in the dark mirror of your prejudicial thinking — Janus

Sounds like Rod Serling opening an Outer Limits episode.

Sounds like Rod Serling opening an Outer Limits episode. — Mww

No, Rod Serling opened episodes on Twilight-Zone, not Outer-Limits

He also wrote some of the episodes, but the best ones were by regular Sci-Fi writers.

But Serling was an excellent mood-creating talker.

Michael Ossipoff.

9 Sa

Would you like me to construct a half-decent argument for your position whilst I'm at it? — S

If you were to construct an argument for my position (no knowledge of the existence of future objects is possible) all it could ever be is half-decent, because you actually think “knowledge is what we know” is sufficient ground.

Tanquery. Rangpur if you got it. I hate beer.

Bummer. I knew I shouldn’t have trusted my memory.

Thanks

a dim reflection in the dark mirror of your prejudicial thinking — Janus


Sounds like Rod Serling opening an Outer Limits episode. — Mww

Your comment sounds like it reflects the outer limits of your ability to respond from the twilight zone of your prejudicial thinking. :joke:

HA!! Good one!!

I seem to recall (oh oh....memory trust again) you agree with S, there is a rock, in the future without observers. If so, what is the ground of your reason?

It is merely a logical one: there is no reason to believe that what is there depends on our perceptions; although obviously what we perceive to be there does in part. There is a logical difference between being perceptible and being perceived. Of course the rock is not perceived if no one is perceiving it; but it does not follow that it has thereby become imperceptible or non -existent.

Isn't there pretty widespread agreement about, say, characteristics of Santa Claus or vampires? Or pretty widespread agreement about the Beatles being a good band?

Neither is any closer to being correct, especially not objectively so. — Terrapin Station

??? Hence my use of "more" objective. So scientists publish the results of their studies to inform the rest of us about the objective facts they have discovered? Or do they publish so other scientists can attempt to duplicate? Why bother with duplication? Maybe it suggests evidence of "something that occurs independently of us"? That was my point. Clearly, we all know that facts are not determined by democracy.

Granted, of course. No one claims the unperceived simply ceases to exist. But is that tacit entitlement for an affirmative truth claim with respect to the physical reality of future objects? Is the logic that it wouldn’t disappear serve as truth that it would still exist?

Given you've granted that there seems to be no reason to believe that unperceived objects cease to exist, I don't understand the motivation behind, or the sense of, your two subsequent questions.

Motivation is falsification of the OP thesis. A substantive falsification. My two questions set the premise.

So are you trading on the idea that existence is an equivocal notion?

Not existence, no; that which is, is. The equivocation arises from requisites for the when, the temporality, of truth statements with respect to existence.

Unfortunately for the conversation, I have little of idea what you are trying to say here. Are you saying there would be no truth statements if humans were gone? If so, I agree, but I can't see what that could have to do with whether there would be rocks.

That is the predication of my whole argument: if there can be no truth statements if humans are gone, then the truth statement “there are rocks when humans are gone” cannot be made. No truth value can be assigned to a truth statement impossible to make. There very well may be rocks, but no true statement can be made about that existential condition, which includes “there will be rocks”.

Maybe there will be rocks is not a consideration a truth statement admits.

I cant see why truth-apt statements can't be made now, since humans are here now, about what would be the case if humans were no longer around.

Ok, no prob. It is true there are apt to be rocks in the future. No different in principle than believing there will be rocks in the future. No different in principle than having no reason to think there wouldn’t be rocks in the future, all else being equal. None of those are congruent with the truth statement in the OP. And, truth-apt statements can be false, which means the statement there are no rocks when all the humans are gone is truth-apt.

I think we all know your argument by now. What's the point of repeating it? That reply of yours doesn't progress the debate or engage productively. It merely reasserts premises I rejected ages ago, and anything that follows from rejected premises is irrelevant to my position.

This is a confusing example, because isn't it your position that ALL utterances are subjective? If definitions are subjective can anything be said that is NOT subjective?

So since religious people take certain claims to be objective, that is the "exact same" as someone claiming that words have consistent meaning?

I think I am missing your point? — ZhouBoTong

It seems to me that there might be a problem with his method. It's like he starts from, "It must be subjective!", and then tries to come up with an argument in support of that. It puts the cart before the horse.

Why should a student NOT be allowed to argue (and actually win / get credit) any wrong answer on a test, because that is what the question "meant" to them?

2 + 2 = 5? Well I interpreted = to mean equal plus 1. Why am I not allowed to do that? — ZhouBoTong

Ooh, good point. :up:

The student would be marked down on that one, because he answered incorrectly, because he failed to understand the meaning. He thought it meant something else, or he deliberately went by his own idiosyncratic interpretation, and as a result answered incorrectly. There is an objective meaning, which is what it means in the public, shared language. He should have followed the rules of that language.

No time “telling”, no temporal reference frame, time itself becomes nothing.
— Mww

It doesn't follow that time becomes "nothing", that conclusion is merely a dim reflection in the dark mirror of your prejudicial thinking. Time becomes untold is all. If time were "nothing" then what would there be to be told in the first place? — Janus

:100:

If we say something about a river, we're not talking about something that is itself language...

That's only if we focus on the utterance as an utterance. — Terrapin Station

Ironically, this was your type of error from earlier on, when I was stating the meaning of "boat", and in response, you were talking about a definition.

A small vessel for travelling over water, propelled by oars, sails, or an engine. That's not a definition. A small vessel isn't composed of words.

I think I am fine with all of that. I would say that any single experience I have is subjective, but it can be made more objective by comparing it to other people who have had similar experiences. Isn't that a major part of the scientific method? I can agree that experience is how we learn. Heck, I would even say that experience has taught me that the rock will still be there when humans are gone because when I leave a room and return, everything is still there (I get there could be some crazy supernatural or just plain weird stuff going on, but extraordinary claims blah, blah... it seems simplest to assume it all just stayed there vs thinking it disappears and re-appears every time I blink). — ZhouBoTong

Yes! That's the right kind of thinking! (At least, I think so). It's different priorities, it seems. What's more of a priority? The question of whether you were there at the time to observe the room? No, it seems silly to even ask that, because we already know the answer and agree on it. The question of which explanation is best? Gold star!

You all get in a lot of responses each day. I try to read everything, but apologize for any overlaps. — ZhouBoTong

You have nothing to apologise for. If it weren't for the involvement of those such as yourself and @Janus, I would feel much more like I am in a madhouse! :lol:

Regarding my conversation with S., in this thread, just for the record, that conversation ended by S. being asked what he meant, and being unable to tell what he meant. — Michael Ossipoff

Incorrect. It ended with me informing you that I was going to ignore you, because we reached a dead end whereby you kept asking me to do something which is demonstrably unnecessary - provide a definition - and thus a waste of my time, and I had already explained that. The meaning is understood by both of us, but the difference is that I don't pretend otherwise for the sake of pushing some rubbish argument.

But a strength of my argument is that I'm not saying anything controversial on the face of it. — S

Yeah, well, more than 15 pages of debate are indicative of how uncontroversial your position is.

If the idealist can't even handle a hypothetical scenario of a rock (as defined by the dictionary) after we've died, then that's a big failing for idealism. I'm not suggesting that they can't bite the bullet, I'm suggesting that it's wrong to. It's a failing if you have to go to such lengths in order to explain away something as simple and easily understandable as post-human rocks. — S

But post-human rocks are not simple and easily understandable if you actually think about it. This is a bit like saying quantum physics "fails" because it goes to great lengths to explain away such simple and easily understandable concepts as discrete objects, or measurements that don't affect that which is measured.

Expain to me how this is not just an argument from ignorance?

Again, what would the guy on the street think? He'd get it straight away, wonder why you were making such a fuss, and think you peculiar. — S

The guy on the street doesn't understand a great many things outside of their personal expertise.

So idealism has to invent a whole new way of interpreting language just to account for it's wacky premise? Why should we speak their peculiar language? These problems stem back to the wacky idealist premise, do they not? Isn't that the real problem? — S

I find your language wacky as well.

Tanquery. Rangpur if you got it. I hate beer. — Mww

Okay, I will bring you a glass of that gin you like. And I won't throw it in your face. Promise. :halo:

I seem to recall (oh oh....memory trust again) you agree with S, there is a rock, in the future without observers. If so, what is the ground of your reason? — Mww

Correction: there would be a rock.

Like me, he goes by logic, as opposed to your irrational empiricism. Unlike you, he doesn't assume your unwarranted premise and then reason on full steam ahead until he reaches his predictable destination: a false conclusion. (Unless he is deliberately doing so as a reduction to the absurd). Soundness matters in logic.

Maybe it suggests evidence of "something that occurs independently of us"? That was my point. Clearly, we all know that facts are not determined by democracy. — ZhouBoTong

Terrapin has trouble with that one. He tends to see the one as the other. I had that problem with him earlier, and I had to give him an explanation of the difference which might well have been too lengthy for him to handle without shutting off part way through.

But is that tacit entitlement for an affirmative truth claim with respect to the physical reality of future objects? Is the logic that it wouldn’t disappear serve as truth that it would still exist? — Mww

If you let go off your needlessly strict criteria for justification, or your needlessly incongruous way of interpreting things like this, then yes! Drop the black-and-white thinking and the problem dissipates.

That is the predication of my whole argument: if there can be no truth statements if humans are gone, then the truth statement “there are rocks when humans are gone” cannot be made. No truth value can be assigned to a truth statement impossible to make. There very well may be rocks, but no true statement can be made about that existential condition, which includes “there will be rocks”.

Maybe there will be rocks is not a consideration a truth statement admits. — Mww

Why do you assume that it would have to be made at the time, after we're all dead, when there obviously wouldn't be anyone alive to make statements? Why couldn't it have been made beforehand? If you're having trouble picturing this, then imagine a statement written in my journal. I write the statement, then five minutes later, we all die. Then through some illogical magic you have up your sleeve, you conclude that the statement wouldn't be true or false according to what's the case. :brow:

I'm guessing that this illogical magic consists in a hidden idealist premise which is completely unwarranted. And this is the predication of your whole argument? :rofl: