If I need an intelligent idol, I'll appoint one - do I need one forced upon me? — Qwex

Apparently.

That's not what I meant. We are able judges, but we are not thee judge.

Apparently

For your self-security? Based on your judgement of my intellect?

That's not what I meant. We are able judges, but we are not thee judge. — Qwex

It would be a really good idea to say what you mean. But an ability to do so actually requires a certain level of intelligence.

Could this be used as a measure of intelligence?

You're just joking around...

You've asked poor questions and you're now being destructive.

For your self-security? Based on your judgement of my intellect? — Qwex

Ha? No. I just can't stand your posts around here. You are childish, infantile, and have horribly wrong and elementally unintelligent points. It really rubs me the wrong way.

You asked.

You should not take this that I am trying to silence you. You say what you want and what you will. I just answered your question, that's all.

No, you're just joking around... — Qwex

I've been never more serious than this.

On a serious note, during your dissection of my post, you missed half of it.

I'll stop the debate with you here...

I don't think intelligence is a human standard.

If you are intelligent, there is reward. — Qwex

If anyone else wants to address this, which is the underlying princple to my argument, feel free.

If you are not an expert, then it is generally reasonable to defer to the opinions of experts, plural. When there is no general agreement among experts about some question, then the reasonable thing to do is to withhold judgement. You shouldn't latch on to a contested or contrarian expert opinion, just because it appeals to you (as some do). If you are talking to one expert, you can trust her to the extent to which you believe her to be representing the prevailing opinion. Of course, you can't be completely sure on that score.

When someone is using expertise in one field to help them reach a conclusion in a different field, where they lack expertise, more skepticism is warranted - especially when you are dealing with a singular opinion, rather than a consensus of multiple experts. They may well be going out on a limb and talking shit - it is pretty common actually.

In any case, expertise is not easily transferable: even if you accept an expert answer, you can never be as confident about it as someone who has worked through the solution. And you'll just have to live with that - or do the necessary learning and training, and check the reasoning yourself.

So what do you do when you are at an impasse? Well, when I see that a conversation is not working out, for whatever reason, I usually just leave. I like to think that am not here to "win" arguments.

Either they appear to be obviously wrong to you because they see a connection that you haven’t yet uncovered (and so they’re actually right), or they’re really wrong because they are blinded by their own false beliefs.

The more general problem is: how do you know you’re wrong? It’s possible that there’s something you’re not seeing that makes you wrong, but you don’t know you’re wrong because you’re not seeing that thing. When the other appears obviously wrong to you: either he’s right and you’re not seeing what makes him right, or he’s wrong and he’s not seeing what makes him wrong.

So how can you tell for sure which one it is? If you can’t find out on your own you need help. If the person you discuss with is willing neither to help you see what you don’t see (in case he’s right) nor to consider that he may be wrong (in case he’s wrong), then you need other people to help you see what you don’t see (in case he’s right) or help him see what he doesn’t see (in case he’s wrong).

And so if you have encountered that recently I suggest that you share the actual example with us so that we may help you untangle the knot :wink:

I don't really want to share a specific example because I don't want to cause drama calling out the main person I've encountered this phenomenon with. I will however say that it is a person who has participated in this thread, so if everyone in this thread (or at least that person, without yet knowing it's them) is cool with it possibly being them, and the thread turning to focus on their opinions and what about them seems obviously wrong on the one hand but above my head on the other hand, then I'll share that.

Happy to be shared, if me (I'm not paranoid nor sure if it is me). I won't reply to it.

This is a philosophy forum, if you think you have encountered an argument that isn’t valid and it bothers you enough that it leads you to create a whole topic based on it, why refrain from discussing it directly? You’re afraid you’re going to hurt the feelings of that person by pointing out a mistake they’ve made, or a wrong belief that they hold?

Should I create a topic to philosophize about why some people beat around the bush using analogies without tackling an issue directly (that could make for an interesting topic actually) or should I ask you directly? Well I can do both, but the point is it wouldn’t hurt to mention precisely what bothers you, we’re all supposed to be open-minded and reasonable folks, if sometimes we aren’t well we should work on it, so you shouldn’t be afraid to state what is bothering you, or send a private message to that person if you prefer.

Do you dismiss Russell's incomprehensible argument as obscurantist nonsense, or accept the conclusion of his complex technical argument you're not smart enough to follow just on his word? — Pfhorrest

No, I just dismiss your hypothetical.

Whew! Thought you were coming after me. I'm a retired mathematician who hasn't kept up with the highly abstract areas in a number of years. So I learn stuff about modern set theory from members like fishfry. I also still dabble in minor research, so I may quibble with comments about that topic.

However, I don't have much patience with arguments about foundations of math if the poster seems to have only a minimal knowledge of math.

I have no expertise in philosophy, although I may seem confrontational when I encounter words or concepts that appear to be poorly defined. :cool:

because there are some people who seem far more knowledgeable than me in some areas, and yet clearly and completely wrong in other areas, but claim that their position in the latter areas can be justified by things I just don't understand in the former areas. And I'm not sure how to handle that. — Pfhorrest

Thank you for your post! You are extremely kind and generous in your choice of how to describe this problem. To be clear, I do not think you're referring to folks - like me - who on occasion can be catastrophically and stupidly wrong. I dumped on @fishfry with my stupid mistake - really just an ignorant mistake - and he dumped back in language that reason forced me to accept - because I had added dumbness to ignorance. But I've been forgiven and I learned from someone who does indeed know what they're talking about.

But this is not the problem.

There is ignorance, the general and arguably infinite condition of us all, at all times. And there is stupidity, which I define as ignorance that should know better; "should" meaning "has been presented with correct information and argument, even many times."

Of course it's not quite that simple, but it will do for here. And among the stupid are people I think of as a being like a tar-baby. If you engage at all, you get dirty and it's hard to disengage. And they cannot, more likely will not and refuse to - a variety of cannot - respond appropriately in discussion.

Good sense dictates non-engagement if your interlocutor is known by you to be stupid, even a tarbaby (these as defined above). And if you cannot resist, then to disengage as quickly as possible firing whatever Parthian shot you care to leave, and cleaning up as best you can, reminding yourself that not everyone can learn, or is interested in learning. Which is hard given the sometimes stunning stupidity exhibited here.

What is your - our - obligation to such folks? To my way of thinking, it is first courtesy, politeness, patience, generosity, work in the sense of careful expression for clarity's sake, and anything else that may become someone upholding both ends of a conversation and attempting to be civil - because you or I might learn something! But when it's finally clear that it's a pig in the parlor, then it is a fundamental error not to adjust and act in accordance with that fact. At the most basic level, it's a failure to acknowledge (and even respect) the pigginess of the pig and your own non-pigginess.

How to detect the pig? Substantive and categorical propositions, usually, that start with conditionals or hypotheticals. E.g., "If God existed..., therefore God exists." Or just , "God exists!" Although in our current climate, more likely is, "Trump has done nothing wrong!" In both cases the test is to use reason. In the first, the argument is fallacious. In the second, how does he (or she) know? In short, pigs abuse language and reason in many ways, and it's not always easy or quick to recognize the fault. And once the pig is recognized as a pig, then it's a very fair question to ask just what, exactly, is that person about. What is their real agenda? And when they do not make that clear, then one may understand that one is dealing with a variety of liar.

That is, in sum, language in itself speaks apart from the content of the words. And it is just this quality of language that ultimately unmasks the pig, or the liar, or the fraud. Aristotle covered all of this in his various logics, and in his Rhetoric. Language speaks, and that it does so has been thoroughly documented for not less than 2500 years, and no doubt much longer than that.

It simply remains for us to take the lesson, and as unpleasant as a pig in the parlor is, to deal with it as a pig.

I didn't create this thread to talk about one specific argument, but more about the general type of question that an argument that I've seen repeated around here keeps bringing to my mind. Namely: if someone who looks (to you) smarter than you in one field says that things in that field have implications contrary to things you feel confident about in another field, what do you do? Question their competence in the first field (even though you're not competent enough in that to directly challenge their claims about it), or question yours in the second?

Also, the particular doubts like that that have come up about the clearest case of that that I've seen here have already been addressed by another apparent expert in the first field who immediately guessed who I had in mind right after I started this thread and assured me that they also find this apparent expert's implications outside their own field dubious. Much as @SophistiCat suggested I seek out the advice of alternate experts. So I'm not especially shaken about that case in particular any more.

In any case, I don't think I would especially like if if someone started a new thread with the topic "I see Pfhorrest keep saying this thing about [x -> y] over and over again on the forum and he seems smarter than me in [x] but he's obviously wrong about [y] and I don't know what to do about that." I dunno, I might like that, depending on how it's phrased, because I love attention, but I'm doubtful enough about whether others would like that that I wouldn't want to start a public thread just about it. I would PM them instead, if I cared that much about that particular topic. Which I don't. But the general question of how to handle questionable conclusions from apparent experts is more interesting, and worth its own thread I think.

That's just refusing to pose an answer to the question. Which is your choice to do, but... it's not really an answer, obviously.

Thank you for your kind reply! To be clear, the incidents that prompted this question in me weren't arguments I was having with other users, but rather claims I see other users make in other arguments with still other people. My self-doubt makes me not dive into those argument, because even though I see conclusions that I think are clearly wrong, I don't feel competent enough to tackle the particular arguments that come to those conclusions, so I would just have to jump in out of nowhere with an unrelated argument to the contrary conclusion, which doesn't seem like a productive thing to do.

I will however say that it is a person who has participated in this thread, so if everyone in this thread (or at least that person, without yet knowing it's them) is cool with it possibly being them, and (... etc etc) — Pfhorrest

Until we find out whodunnit, we are all suspects.

My self-doubt makes me not dive into those argument, because even though I see conclusions that I think are clearly wrong, — Pfhorrest

May I help? Re-title "self-doubt" as a wise prudence and both congratulate yourself on being gifted with such sense and proud of your ability to recognize and defer to it.

John Wayne has a good line in one of his many westerns. Here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3343LUHNb4
You'll get your John Wayne moments; you'll know when.

↪A Seagull That's just refusing to pose an answer to the question. Which is your choice to do, but... it's not really an answer, obviously. — Pfhorrest

I prefer to deal with the real world rather than hypotheticals.

If someone has said that they have proven something, but the proof is couched in jargon and convoluted arguments rather than plain and explicit logic and I disagree with the conclusion then I am not going to waste my time finding the flaw(s) in their 'proof'.

I dumped on fishfry with my stupid mistake - really just an ignorant mistake - and he dumped back in language that reason forced me to accept - because I had added dumbness to ignorance. But I've been forgiven and I learned from someone who does indeed know what they're talking about. — tim wood

I appreciated your gracious response. In the end that was a productive interaction.

So you think people are not intelligent enough to measure people's intelligence. — god must be atheist

That clearly depends on the definition for intelligence. According to the Dunning-Kruger research, intelligence is knowing when you do not know.

Academic education may actually achieve the opposite effect. If you give people a certificate that says that they know, then they will more easily make the mistake to believe that they know when they do not know.

Hence, academic education cannot improve anybody's intelligence. It can only destroy it, which is actually what it does in the vast majority of cases.

That means, that people's intelligence is below the level of their own intelligence. — god must be atheist

There's a funny observation about that problem.

Lots of people are known to write programs that they themselves can no longer read. Reading/parsing source code is considered to be much, much harder than writing it.

In fact, this is also the case for programs. A program that writes other programs is much simpler than the corresponding program that needs to read/parse them.

So, writing a program at 100% of the level of your own intelligence is a recipe for disaster, because you may need 150% to understand it again a few weeks later. Someone else may then need 250% of the original intelligence to comprehend it.

“The problem,” Leveson wrote in a book, “is that we are attempting to build systems that are beyond our ability to intellectually manage.” But these systems have become so complicated that hardly anyone can keep them straight in their head. Barr described what they found as “spaghetti code,” programmer lingo for software that has become a tangled mess. The problem is that programmers are having a hard time keeping up with their own creations. Even very good programmers are struggling to make sense of the systems that they are working with. — The Coming Software Apocalypse

So, yes, the level of (your own) intelligence required to write a program is substantially lower than the one required to comprehend it later on.

I prefer to deal with the real world rather than hypotheticals.

If someone has said that they have proven something, but the proof is couched in jargon and convoluted arguments rather than plain and explicit logic and I disagree with the conclusion then I am not going to waste my time finding the flaw(s) in their 'proof'. — A Seagull

I thought you don't like to deal with hypotheticals.... (Tse-hee-hee) (-:

I prefer to deal with the real world rather than hypotheticals.

If someone has said that they have proven something, but the proof is couched in jargon and convoluted arguments rather than plain and explicit logic and I disagree with the conclusion then I am not going to waste my time finding the flaw(s) in their 'proof'. — A Seagull
I thought you don't like to deal with hypotheticals.... (Tse-hee-hee) (-: — god must be atheist

It is not so much hypothetical as it is my experience. :)

Now I need to know the actual topic because we've all this discussion about it and nothing really concrete about the actual details.

Fields like epistemology and ethics/morality do seem to have that kind of hierarchical relationship where conclusions drawn from epistemology directly bear on discussions on moral truth. Others like math and ethics the relationship seems much less clear. Personally I love inter-disciplinary connections and I'd like to know the two fields were. Certainly not all fields are oriented in this hierarchical-like structure.

It depends on the context. In religious law, it is an axiomatic belief. — alcontali

To millions (billions?) of people around the world, it is an empirical fact that God is real.

In science, it may apparently look like an empirical question but the falsificationist boundaries of science do not allow for a question that cannot be tested experimentally. — alcontali

This statement (and many others like it) are are exactly the sort of explanations used by people of science to demonstrate to believers that their belief - that God's existence is an empirical fact - is incorrect. These attempts are rarely successful.

Pardon the interruption.

What’s with your handle? Why must God be an atheist? Is it because He doesn’t know He’s God? Or that there is nothing above Him, and this makes his Soul long for meaning? Is God doing okay? Should we check on him?

In science, it may apparently look like an empirical question but the falsificationist boundaries of science do not allow for a question that cannot be tested experimentally. — alcontali

Falsification in science and natural science in general only deals with the material world. God is a Spirit (at least that’s what most believers say). Science cannot even prove to anyone that other people aren’t philosophical zombies (that they do or don’t have conscious experience). Consciousness is private and is experienced privately. Likewise, God would only be experienced privately as a pure consciousness (Spirit) revealing itself to another consciousness.

People have “religious” or “spiritual” experiences all the time. Hard scientists say that they are just hallucinating when they can’t even prove they are conscious to begin with!

It’s like denying the most important part of existence. That’s my take.

It’s like denying the most important part of existence. That’s my take. — Noah Te Stroete

Yes, agreed.

Science has its own legitimate purpose but a lot of questions simply do not fall under its purview. Science is a tool to use for what it is good for, and solely for what it is meant to be used.

Scientism, on the other hand, is a shit show, and generally ends in a complete disaster:

Scientism is the promotion of science as the best or only objective means by which society should determine normative and epistemological values. The term scientism is generally used critically, implying a cosmetic application of science in unwarranted situations considered not amenable to application of the scientific method or similar scientific standards. — Wikipedia on scientism

If your only tool is a hammer then sooner or later the whole world will start looking like a nail!

That said I don’t believe anyone knows what God is like. My opinion is that He gives us insight along our journeys in life. Some are open to His revealings. Others are not. I personally only take my own spiritual experiences as valid (to me). The world is full of con artists and scammers.