Being sure of the Delphic Oraculum's truth demands of one to be doubtful. Doubting it makes one to be sure.

This is a good paradox.

How is a life lived in the spirit of a paradox? — god must be atheist

The paradox in the Delphic Oracle's words, "surety brings ruin" isn't as interesting or important as the honesty that it exudes.

↪TheMadFool So you disagree when people present good, solid arguments. Good to know. Where has this got you in life? I am not facetious. Maybe you got much farther with this than one other would expect. — god must be atheist

.I just mentioned the Israeli government's strategy of always ensuring that there's someone who refuses to believe even if there's a mountain of evidential support to point out what the Delphic Oracle, 2500 years ago, warned us against: Surety brings ruin.

...what happens if we do not assume these? Can we find a way to do that, which still maintains a capacity to construct arguments? — Banno

The world would grind to a halt and from then on chaos.

X: The UN will convene at 10:00 AM and the UN will not convene at 10:00 AM
Y: WTF?

From my own painful personal experience, one goes through both physical and mental paralysis when face to face with a contradiction!

That this discussion between the two of us is even possible depends on the laws of thought.

What this thread is about is that this fringe approach to logic has recently shown some interesting aspects of mathematical proof - the example above begins work towards a proof of integral calculus in a paraconsistent logic. — Banno

I know next to nothing about calculus so I'm not going to be able to make a comment that would further the discussion. I'll say this though, Godel's incompleteness theorems seem mighty relevant.

But here we have a way to perhaps understand these inconsistencies in a coherent way. Madness and stupidity is perhaps to do with incoherence rather than inconsistency.

Hence the somewhat surprising break between consistency and coherence. — Banno

Coherence & Consistency? :chin:

I don't think these two are different. Coherence is only possible if there are no inconsistencies. In other words, coherent iff consistent.

That would not be correct. The logic being proposed is as formal as any. — Banno

:ok: My bad.

Indeed; and yet here we have a paraconsistent logic that begins to make sense. — Banno

Ok, so for what it's worth, here's what I think:

Nicolai A. Vasiliev (father of paraconsistent logic) is said to have admitted that he was influenced by Nikolai Lobachevsky (father of hyperbolic geometry)

Reasoning by analogy with the "imaginary" geometry of Lobachevsky, Vasiliev called his novel logic "imaginary", for he assumed it was valid for the worlds where the above-mentioned laws (law of the excluded middle and the law of noncontradiction) did not hold, worlds with beings having other types of sensations.  — Wikipedia

Since Nicolia A. Vasiliev is borrowing a page from Nikolai Lobachevsky's hyperbolic geometry, specifically the rejection of a postulate (Euclid's controversial (?? :chin: ??) fifth postulate), we need to look into the so-called Three Laws Of Thought:

1. Law of identity. A = A
2. Law of the excluded middle. p v ~p
3. Law of noncontradiction. ~(p & ~p)

At this point I'm out of depth but in my humble opinion these laws of thought are, at the end of the day, postulates i.e. they're assumptions. Given this, we're free to deny any or all of them and investigate what doing so might lead to. That's exactly what Nicolai A. Vasiliev, inspired by Nikolai Lobachevsky, did and we have logic that tolerate contradictions (paraconsistent logic).

Truth is there doesn't seem to be any real difference between paraconsistent logic and madness/stupidity as inconsistencies are the hallmark of all three. In that sense, Nicolai A. Vasiliev's paraconsistent logic is a study of insanity/inanity. (Mentally ill & mentally retarded) people since time immemorial have been using paraconsistent logic. :chin:.

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line. — Oscar Levant

The Wisdom Of The Fool

Hey! It'about me! The Mad Fool! :scream:

Also, paraconsistent logic may prove its worth in matters inherently subjective:

X: The movie was phenomenal!
Y: No, it was not!
Z: It was both phenomenal and also not phenomenal!

De gustibus non est disputandum

Last but not the least, The Paradox Of Paraconsistent Logic:

Paraconsistent logic makes sense AND paraconsistent logic doesn't make sense!

That example would not arrises in the instances given in the cited articles.

Try this one:

Australasian Journal of Logic Paraconsistent Measurement of the Circle

There is comfort to be had knowing that the area of the circle is indifferent to changes in logic. The core of Archimede’s insight is derivable even in the event of inconsistency. Truth is not so fragile.
7mReplyOptions — Banno

Speaking for myself, paraconsistent logic is a "higher form" of logic and contains, as a proper subset classical logic (sentential, predicate, categorical) barring reductio ad absurdum. So, I'm not as I impressed as I would've liked to be by the fact that the area of a circle is "indifferent to changes in logic" - it must be so.

Secondly, I'm not so sure that we can be as mechanical in our thinking in paraconsistent logic as we can be in classical logic. In the former, we just plug in the propositions, apply natural deduction rules, and out at the other end we get a true proposition. In the latter, I surmise, we have to be constantly alert to the possibility that we aren't making some kind of mistake like how mathematicians have to take precautions that they aren't dividing by zero when tackling algebraic problems.

By the way, you haven't really addressed the issue I raised. A contradiction simply doesn't make any kind of sense at all. Banno is a member of TPF AND Banno is not a member of TPF. Ergo, Banno is...??? ( :chin: )

Perhaps you think a little too highly of yourself. — T Clark

Not true. The 10th man's job is to simply disagree whether or not he has good reasons to do so.

You picked the cherry. — T Clark

No I didn't. I stated the obvious. We're engaged in the enterprise of mimicking nature and quite badly at that. A simple proof that's the case: Birds have wings, airplanes have wings. Bird wings came first.

Interesting principle. Makes me think, and I don't know why, on how our definition of complexity is limited by our perceptive capacity (what is complex to us might not be to other intelligent species and vice versa). I guess this applies in someway to our conception of speciality in the sense that the meaning of such concept is limited by the perception of the body that harbours such concept, as Gnomon (I keep forgetting how to tag others) implies in its comment. — Daniel

Complexity?

Complexity Paradox

1. Complexity arises from simplicity [our universe]
2. (Only) complexity can create simplicity [try and simplify something]

Sure. You can still give a glib summary of a theory in a sentence, no? — bert1

A sentence, to my knowledge, doesn't have a word limit. The convention seems to be to keep it short or rather short enough to understand. True, you could put down an entire theory in the form of a single sentence but that sentence would be very long indeed. You would've won as it were, proven that a sentence can be a theory, but only on a technicality.

Definitions, on the other hand, are usually expressible in a sentence because the concepts involved are fewer.

the contradictions themselves as they appear in such systems are at the end of the day empty words.
— TheMadFool

I don't agree. There's something important going on here. — Banno

What do you think it is? Continuing with my example contradiction x is 1 AND x is not 1, what is the value of x?

Labelling something as evil allows one to place it outside of our considerations... it's just evil, so we needn't give it further consideration.

But the unconsidered life is not worth living.

Calling something evil can be a rhetorical strategy. Homosexuality is evil. Atheism is evil. Fundamentalism is evil. So you can stop trying to make sense of it now.

See how ↪schopenhauer1 uses it in this way. — Banno

I don't think that's correct.

Either all are simply definitions or are fragments of theories. Speaking for myself, single sentences are definitional in almost all cases and if not express, clarify, expand upon concepts that are part of a theory, a theory being a set of ideas that are interrelated and designed to provide an explanatory framework for observed phenomena. :lol:

Then again, as far as I know, no falcon can fly for thousands of miles carrying hundreds of passengers at an altitude of 35,000 feet. — T Clark

Cherry-picking. Confirmation bias.

Aah. Our anti-science expert speaks again. — T Clark

:lol: I'm not anti-science. I'm just the 10th man.

The fossils are real no doubt but the rest of paleontology is imagination. This isn't a flaw as much as it's a challenge worthy of true genius.

:up: Your post was an eye-opener. Thank you very much indeed. I remember writing a long time ago about how people have this misconception that Thanatos (death) is impartial/fair as evidenced by the following quote,

Pale Death beats equally at the poor man's gate and at the palaces of kings. — Horace

Not so. Any animal documentary on predator-prey dynamics show that the weak and the sick are the first to go if you know what I mean. The same is true for humans - the poor, the very young and the elderly, those at the bottom rung of the social ladder bear the brunt of catastrophic events.

Man, it seems to me, gives itself a special status among existing things; special in the sense that Man thinks Man, somehow, is more particularly unique OR essential (OR divine) compared to other existing things. — Daniel

I like @180 Proof's view of such claims :point: The Mediocrity Principle. Thanks 180 Proof.

the same basic laws that govern every object govern Man — Daniel

Which takes us back to The Mediocrity Principle. However, some might say that man bends nature to his will. To that I'll say no aircraft can match a falcon's grace, skill and agility in flight. Many people accuse China of making cheap, low-quality, knockoffs of European and American brands but Europe and America are themselves in the business of mass-producing poor imitations of mother nature's creations. Odd that! Forgers kvetching about forgers!

change — Gellert Marvollo Potter

Drift (gradual) vs Shift (sudden) kinds of Change.

Which of the two types of change will occur depends on the speed of information transmission taking into account also the quality of the information (is it good, useful, powerful, so on and so forth?).

This current era in human civilization is known as the information age - the rapid pace at which new ideas are generated, transmitted, made to interact, their accessibility, storage, and copiability means shift changes will be more common than drift changes.

The enviroment for information is the best money can buy. The good and the bad both will capitalize on this golden opportunity. Hard to say what kinda changes will occur but be assured change will take place.

First, a confession: I loooove paradoxes a term in logic reserved for contradictions but in the vernacular also applicable to the counterintuitive, the ironic, the strange, basically all manners of WTFery. I don't know why? Frankly, I can't make heads or tails of some of them, Wikipedia has a list, but I'm like a moth to a flame when it comes to paradoxes. This itself is a paradox because what happens usually is one first masters logic and only then investigates its limitations but look at me - all I know are the basics but I'm already delving into advanced topics.

Second, I want to discuss contradictions, the big daddy of inconsistencies. From the articles I read online, logicians are scared to death of contradictions because what they can lead to, their consequence - aptly named the principle of explosion (ex contradictione quodlibet). Even beginner's like me understand what it is.

However, for my money, a contradiction is, in and of itself, something nonsensical, it doesn't make sense, period! Why? Well, take a look at this contradiction: x is 1 and x is not 1. Clearly, x is not 1 is a denial of x is 1. In other words, the word "not" in x is not 1 asserts that x is 1 is false. Thus, x is 1 and x is not 1 states x is 1 is true and x is 1 is false. This issue with contradictions has nothing to do with ex contradictione quodlibet (I'm not saying contradictions cause undesirable effects).

Thus, even if one creates a logical system, like paraconsistent logic or dialetheism, by somehow blocking the principle of explosion, it doesn't change the fact that contradictions are inherently nonsensical as described above.

I guess what I'm really saying is that though paraconsistent logic and dialetheism tolerate contradictions, these systems drawing the line at ex contradictione quodlibet, the contradictions themselves as they appear in such systems are at the end of the day empty words.

The Coronavirus Paradox

The coronavirus, though it itself doesn't discriminate races, has become a reason to discriminate races.

Perhaps, I did not explain clearly enough. I was trying to say that torture would be classified as being one of the most severe crimes, taking account of all factors. The end of the victim receiving repeated acts of torture and the ongoing malicious intent of the person perpetuating it — Jack Cummins

Phew! :sweat: :100:

But torturing someone over a period of time would involve the subjective experience of the person suffering as an end, and clear long term intent to harm. So, in the scheme of things, it would be seen as falling into the darkest regions of the spectrum of 'evil' acts. I am not trying to be pedantic, because all these factors would play so much weight in any legal evaluation of repeated a acts of torture. — Jack Cummins

Jaaaaccckk! Are you defending torture?

an intention or a consequence — Jack Cummins

Both matter. In fact an intention is consequence oriented, something you already know of course, right? It's the intervening action/deed - the link as it were between intention and consequence - that an evil person tries to pass off as good. This is the oldest and most powerful weapon in an evil person's arsenal dear Jack. Be careful Jack!

objective and subjective — Jack Cummins

I fail to see how the distinction matters Jack. Are you saying that if I torture somebody to death over a period of weeks like some serial killers have been known to do there'll be someone who'll think that this isn't evil? I'd like to know how that could be possible. Any ideas?

No paradoxes, just questionable premises. — 180 Proof

Definition Paradox

X: What is a definition?
Y: You know.
X: I don't. That's why I ask.
Y: You use the words, "what" and "is". If so, you know their definitions and that means you know what a definition is. Ergo, to formulate the question, you must know what a definition is but the question itself implies you don't know what a definition is. Paradox.

Question paradox

V: What is a question?
W: You know.
V: I don't. That's why I ask.
W: You asked a question implying you know what a question is. The question itself suggests that you don't know what a question is. Paradox.

hard to fathom — Jack Cummins

The love-evil paradox

1. To love is good.
2. To love to cause suffering is evil.

Go figure! That's one of the reasons, truthseeker, why evil is unfathomable.

Zinloos Geweld (Senseless Violence)

Evil is incomprehensible!

You make a good point. Many physical actions humans can perform happen, let's just say, in the background - much like phone apps and what we're conscious of in a given moment (like the browser I'm using to visit TPF and make this post) is just a tiny fraction of all the apps that are open (in the background).

It's only the tip of the mental iceberg that we're really aware of. Thus, philosophy's task is to closely examine those aspects of mind that are hidden below the surface - the intricacies of our brain's auto-pilot feature as it were - which, to my reckoning, is what making the "...implicit explicit..." is all about.

What I find most intriguing and equally puzzling is the visible one-tenth of the mental iceberg which, all said and done, aims for perfection (clarity, logical rigor to name a few) is radically different from the invisible nine-tenth of the mental iceberg which, to my surprise, is not only just content but also smug about its imperfections (fuzzy, logical rigor ignored and so on).

I tried to think of the perfect words to describe the situation and I got stuck! Interesting! No?

I know that it is hard to define evil precisely. I know that you say it is a Zen moment by not knowing what evil is. The only problem which I see is that by simply saying that you don't know what it is it makes it harder to even begin to think about the reality of evil in world affairs. Perhaps you just don't think that the word 'evil' is not particularly helpful as a starting line, but I am not sure whether or not this is what you mean — Jack Cummins

It's like this. In my first post in your thread, I ran with the standard definition as it appears in the relevant Wikipedia page. You're astute enough to notice that evil (and good) are hedonically flavored concepts - to cause suffering is evil and to bring about happiness is good. You get the idea. Good & evil rendered as such is a very old idea as far as I can tell.

However, another moral theory, Kantian deontological ethics, completely ignores everything, hedonic value included, except, in this case, how a particular action might look if it were made into a universal law. Evil in Kantian terms is failure of duty which will be exposed when one acts in ways that violate the so-called categorical imperative.

So, yeah, I'm utterly bewildered as of this moment as to what evil is. Can we wed utilitarianism (hedonic) and Kantian ethics (non-hedonic) and come up with a definition of evil that's consistent with both moral theories? Just to complete the set, virtue ethics would have us believe that evil is what a bad (irrational) person would do.

To sum up, Kant and Socrates seem to be on the same page - evil is just another name for irrational. Kant would've said evil is simply a logical contradiction in keeping with his wishes to reduce morality to logic. Socrates, since for him rationality is the highest virtue, would've concurred as then irrationality is the worst of vices, the heights of irrationality a contradiction.

Being democratic about it hedonically defined evil loses to evil as unreason 1 to 2 by vote count.

Just so you know, I maybe in complete denial - I must've encountered evil but I simply refuse to accept the truth of it. Such things happen right, truthseeker? Sometimes truth is so painful/shocking that...

By the way, justice, no matter how you try to put a positive spin to it, is ultimately (guilty) people suffering. The million dollar question then is, is evil simply justice? There are metaphysical ramifications - (bad) Karma and the rest.

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
— Søren Kierkegaard
And to live is to be questioned (tested), not answered. — 180 Proof

Indeed! The past (lived) in terms of questions, is filled with answers to questions like, what should I do?, what should I say? Whether the answers were right/wrong becomes clearer only in hindsight which, as they say, is 20/20 but this although critical for learning (from success & failure) is, insofar aa the gist of the OP matters, not as important as the fact that such questions were answered as best as circumstances would permit.

The present (living), however, in thrall of an uncertain future, is the same questions but sans the answers. Thus, we're all, in the present, as you said, tested/questioned.

Arguably then questions, essentially doubt or like you put it "ignorance made visible", their fundamental nature, can be likened temporally to the future which, all things said and done, is the acme of uncertainty. The bottom line is asking a question (what is x?) is the exact same thing as contemplating the future - of both we're unsure/uncertain/ignorant.

What is a definition?
— TheMadFool
The sense of 'definition' is described rather than defined. — 180 Proof

I'm not sure what you mean here. It's not easy, like all paradoxes, to wrap my head around this conundrum.

The Definition Paradox
Definitions

1. Dog: A domesticated wolf. No problems as far as I can tell.

2. Definition (of words): The meaning (definition) of words. Problem! Circularity! It's like saying dog is dog.

The question, what is a question?
Pseudo. Shown not said. (Witty) — 180 Proof

I humbly beg to differ. Every statement ever made, is made, or will be made is an answer to a question. So, the (your) assertion that a "...question is a request for information..." is an answer to the question, what is a question? but this itself is a question implying you already know what a question is but then by posing the question, what is a question?, you're stating that you don't know what a question is. Hence the paradox.

Broadly speaking, a non-rhetorical question is a request for information (i.e. ignorance made visible); a philosophical question, however, is a request for clarification (i.e. implicit assumptions (biases, confusions, non-rhetorical questions) made explicit). The latter seeks to understand – reflect upon – 'illusions of knowledge' whereas the former merely seeks to know. — 180 Proof

:up: :fire: Always a pleasure to read your posts.

In my humble opinion, in line with what you said, before one even tries answering a question (give the information requested) , one must first understand the question and this involves a thorough examination of all the implicit assumptions that are part of the question and having done that make them explicit. This first step invariably necessitates that we get our definitions clarified.

What about definitions critically impact attempts to answer questions?

The Definition Paradox

What is a definition? That's just another way saying define definition but to do that I must already know what a definition is but the question what is a definition? indicates quite clearly that I don't know what a definition is. Thus, I know what a definition is and I don't know what a definitions is.

The Question Paradox

The question, what is a question? indicates that one doesn't know what a question is but then it itself is a question implying that one knows what a questions is. Thus, I know what a question is and I don't know what a question is.

Nec caput nec pedes! :confused:

If I catch Meinong's drift, everything save contradictions of course exists, just in different ways or worlds. As far as I can tell, there are at least two kinds of worlds - the mental and the physical. These two worlds overlap - a stone can be touched and also imagined - but some objects are exclusive to each domain - a unicorn is pure mental but, :chin: Hmmmm...I can't seem to come up with a physical object that can't be thought of (once seen). Can you? I'd be much obliged if you could try and let me know what it/they is/are?

If none can be found then the conclusion is obvious: the physical world is a proper subset of the mental world i.e. there are more mental objects than there are physical objects. Since I'm far less talented than Meinong when it comes to inventing new words, I'm simply going to use our trusty "exist" and say more mental objects exist than physical objects. What are the ramifications of this simple fact if any?

For one, the mind transcends the physical - what's physically impossible is mentally possible e.g. I can't fly physically but on occasion I do so, mentally, in my dreams and let's not forget my imagination. That's odd. Let's not ruffle any feathers here and whole-heartedly endorse physicalism but that amplifies the strangeness - how can the physical brain reach beyond the physical like this? God knows!

Meinong, a wise man by all accounts, went a step further and coined new words like "subsist" to prevent confusion which would've resulted had he relied on the word "exist" which has a distinct and obvious bias for the physical plane.

Nonexistence then is reserved for the impossible, the one I'm most familiar with being the so-called logical contradiction. A square-circle, for instance, can't be conceived of - try it! I did and I failed. Are we to now expect, after a coupla million years of evolution, another, the third level (supramental world) (the first being the physical, the second the mental) will bud out of the mental world and contradictions would be meh!? Is this what Zen koans and logical paradoxes are all about? Tentative first and therefore catch-as-catch-can steps into the supramental world :chin:

Science is what science does not what you say. — magritte

That's alright by me but I'm only toeing the official line here.

The important thing for a philosopher is not answer questions but to get the meaning of the question quite clear. — Bertrand Russell

Following is an anecdote the great Bertrand Russell relates in an interview:

Old man: Winchester?

Barman: Aye.

Old man: The way to Winchester?

Barman: Aye.

Old man: The shortest way to Winchester?

Barman: Aye.

Old man: Don't know!

Philosophy is about understanding the questions, not answering them. — Bertrand Russell

Wait, don't answer that question. — Anonymous

Mr. Smith, you don't have to answer that question. — Anonymous

You had to ask. — Anonymous

For its part, psychology has no essential definition because definitions in psychology are ultimately not conventional or even philosophical. — magritte

WTF? :chin:

@180 Proof @Jack Cummins

WTF? Zen moment for me. I don't know what evil is! :chin: :scream:

It is not and never was — magritte

Let's just agree to disagree. To each his own.

human nature - does it even exist?
— TheMadFool
is a bullshit question, being neither philosophy nor psychology. — magritte

I'm afraid you're mistaken. Please visit the relevant websites.

Science is certain
— TheMadFool
is just ignorant. No science is certain, nor can any science ever be certain. — magritte

You've quoted me out of context.

Statistical claims like those found in psychology tolerate errors in prediction
— TheMadFool
Same as for all science. Even the strongest laws of physics are statistical when applied to the world. — magritte

So, sometimes rivers flow upwards. What utter nonsense!

I think you and I have a fundamentally different idea of what it takes to justify an argument — T Clark

I'm curious, how many different ways to justify are there that we don't see eye to eye?

And what's the definition of philosophy according to Wikipedia? — magritte

"Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental questions", which ought to answer two other questions? — magritte

So if psychologists can't give a definition then they can't know any psychology but are just technicians following a custom? — magritte

Where have I heard that argument before? — magritte

Which one is in question? — magritte

If psychology is a science then what is a science? Is it just some dogma curricular for high schools and wikis or is there specialized education and trained practice to be learned and certified? Why isn't an economist or archeologist a psychologist? — magritte

Still no answer? Ok.

And no I’m not a diehard utilitarian and I don’t know how you could have reached that conclusion.

But I’m not interested in continuing this anymore either. — khaled

G'day Khaled. See ya around. Nice talking to you. Sorry I misjudged your moral leanings.

Too fascile, even equivocal. Nature causes nature itself (e.g. creatures, exploding stars, slipping tectonic plates, lightening strikes, mass extinctions, etc) to suffer? :roll: — 180 Proof

Great observation. Kudos to you.

Self-Harm & Vincent Van Gogh (self-portrait with bandaged ear)