How are conditional statements not completely reliant upon causality? — Mr Phil O'Sophy

If it snows tomorrow, then Tom will do a painting of Bozo the Clown.

You think that's claiming that the snow will cause Tom to do a painting of Bozo the Clown, so that Tom couldn't choose to do otherwise?

where is this evidence then? — Mr Phil O'Sophy

In people saying what I just noted. I couldn't care less if you're familiar with that or believe it, so I'm not going to go searching for quotes online.

when your own response deflects from every single point I make, focuses on one particular part of the argument, and then make an absolutely absurd statement in response as what I can only assume is a deflection tactic. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Should anyone be surprised that your response here has nothing to do with understanding logic?

So, a meter stick is defined circularly — Wallows

Everything is defined circularly, by the way. That's how definitions work. All the words in a dictionary are defined in the dictionary by other words being defined in the dictionary. If you don't have any intuitive semantic grasp of some of those words, it's just one big circular mess and you'd be stuck.

then how can we know that the same properties apply in any other possible world? — Wallows

We don't know that anything in particular applies in any possible world. Possible worlds are a combo of our individual imaginings, our individual abilities to conceive of various things however we're conceiving of them, and things we're stipulating.

I suggest that the scientific method satisfies my general consensus test — Scribble

That's an argumentum ad populum.

You observe individuals say x or behave in y way, and you conclude that "society thinks such and such."

No.

Meaning or definition occur to us in two forms:
1. Intensional meaning wherein we list the properties of a class (genus) and then distinguish its members using other propeties (species)

E.g. A fish is an aquatic animal

2.Extensional meaning in which we list the objects that have the properties given in the intensional meaning.

E.g. Trout, salmon, sturgeon are fish — TheMadFool

Meaning isn't the same thing as a definition, and meaning isn't captured by saying something like "A fish is an aquatic animal." Meaning is what's going on mentally behind saying "A fish is an aquatic animal." It's the mental act of (non-arbitrarily) making that sort of association. That mental, associative act can't be captured in a text string or a set of sounds, and a text string or a set of sounds can't somehow do the relevant mental, associative act.

Meaning that if one can objectively state that life has no meaning, then that objective statement in itself provides grounds to establish some meaning. — Wallows

One would state that objectively, there is no meaning. That's not "objectively stating" something--the statement itself isn't objective. It's a subjective statement (as all statements are) about what's the case in the objective world. If it's the case in the objective world that there is no meaning, then you're not going to have any objective grounds for meaning.

then haven't we idiotized the issue of what gives one meaning in life to a simple matter of what I like best or dislike most? — Wallows

Why would that be "idiotizing" it?

It's insightful that some people think we're in "idiot" territory if we're only talking about persons' feelings, emotions, desires, preferences, etc.

also, doesn't your previous argument rely on the idea of causality? for example: — Mr Phil O'Sophy

No, that's not about causality. Holy moly must you have problems understanding logic if you're reading conditionals as causal statements.

Not that I'm endorsing Hume's views, by the way, which is another reading comprehension fail on your part. I'm just saying that you're on a philosophy board and you're apparently unfamiliar with those issues.

It's really the second half of my post that's most important. I see you hand waving on the issue of potential harm through verbal means. Speech acts are nonetheless acts and acts (wrt legal responsibility) need to be assessed in terms of harm and intention to harm, no? — Baden

I don't frame any moral stance simply on the notions of harm or suffering. They're way too vague, and people can feel harmed or feel that they're suffering in response to any arbitrary thing, which would wind up making everything illegal. (If one feels that it's sufficient to make something morally problematic and to suggest it should be prohibited if someone feels harmed or feels they're suffering because of it.)

Additionally, speech can't be shown to be causal to any particular harm, because regardless of the speech in question, we could take two different people and expose them to the same speech and they'd react completely differently. That's not how causality works. If hitting one billiard ball in manner x "causes" another billiard ball to smoothly roll into pocket y, but hitting another billiard ball in manner x "causes" a third similarly positioned billiard ball to bounce in the opposite direction, then hitting a billiard ball in manner x isn't the cause of the subsequent actions after all--something else is the cause.

With speech, how someone parses it, the meaning they assign, etc. (and you have to have a correct ontology of meaning for this) are all far more important factors.

Do you have any evidence for this at all? You seem to be hanging quite a lot on this empirical claim without any support being advanced for it. — Isaac

We've had a ton of evidence of it lately with all of the sexual assault/rape claims that have no evidence other than a claim, but where accusers are believed by virtue of making an accusation, and where people have commented that if the claims weren't true, the accusers would be in hot water themselves legally.

So, it's fine and dandy to psychologically torture vulnerable targets with threats and intimidation and that shouldn't be controlled. It's their own fault because they should just... what? Toughen up? You don't understand psychology and you don't understand humans. Typical of an ideological absolutist stuck in their favourite meme. — Baden

First off, if S says, "It should be legal to murder others*," that doesn't imply that S doesn't understand anything. You're concluding that just in case x is understood by any arbitrary S, then S will reach moral conclusion y about x. That's false, however.

(*Ignoring the Aspieish counter that murder is conventionally defined as illegal killing.)

actually looked into the subject could hold the position that words can never cause anyone any harm ever. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Are you being unwillfully ignorant? I said from the start "I don't agree that any speech can be harmful, at least not in a manner that suggests control of speech."

So I didn't say that speech can't be harmful unqualified. How in the world are you supposed to be able to read a study (such as you referenced) and reach reasonable conclusions about it when you can't even get such a simple sentence right?

I don't frame any moral stances on "harm," because it's too vague of a term that potentially anyone could apply to anything, depending on their psychological status, their psychological fragility, etc. Hence why I qualified that statement in the way that I did. So I did not say that "words can never cause anyone any harm ever" unqualified.

and I think its common knowledge that high stress environments can cause heart attacks in the elderly. You're welcome to search the material on that. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

You're the one making the claim. If you want me to think it's not just bullshit, you need to present the evidence for it, at which point I'll examine the evidence . . .and tell you the problems with it, because it's not actually possible (partially due to the ethics of it) to do the sorts of experiments that would be required to establish causality for these things--not to mention that you're on a philosophy board and you're apparently unfamiliar with the problem of establishing causality in general a la Hume.

The psychological abuse study, for one says from the start that it includes "harsh nonphysical punishments." I'm not sure how they're defining that, and I can give you all of the details re the problems with the study re why it doesn't at all support what you want it to support when I have more time, but I'm also not going to waste my time with that if you're not interested in learning what the issues would be in this regard. If you want to learn and you demonstrate that, then I'll spend the time on it.

Abusive speech can cause heart attacks. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Haha. Let's see the empirical data on that. (Notice how much power a mere claim has? You're just claiming nonsense.)

Re the old lady, why would speech intimidate her? It's just sounds.

Just to add to Hanover's examples, what about a sustained written and verbal campaign of intimidation aimed at psychologically torturing a vulnerable target? Fine and dandy? — Baden

Yes. Fine and dandy. How is speech going to intimidate you? Not that intimidation should be illegal in any event. But if speech is intimidating you, you need to reassess how you're parsing speech.

There should be no right of recovery and no right for me to stop this behavior? — Hanover

Correct. What there should be instead is a culture that doesn't believe things just because someone claims them. When you're officially prohibited from saying such things, then people tend to believe claims like that whether they're true or not. When we instead have a milieu where anyone is allowed to say whatever they like, then people don't believe things when all there is to them is a claim. That's bad news for religions, sleazy salespeople, con men, slanderers, false accusers, politicians, etc.--and even for people claiming what's essentially nonsense in the name of philosophy, science, etc. (which happens all the time, including right here in River City), and that's good news for us as a culture.

It's sad--and more than a bit frightening--that so many people are okay with speech restrictions, that they're okay with ostracizing others, basically banishing/exiling them--and often taking away their livelihood, etc., just because they dare to express something that's not in line with the current status quo.

I'm a free speech absolutist. I don't agree that any speech can be harmful, at least not in a manner that suggests control of speech. I also think it's missing the point to see freedom of speech as only a legal issue. Freedom of speech is a control issue. Whether it's control via the government/laws or simply social pressure doesn't matter. Control is control.

The whole gist of freedom of speech, by the way, is that it protects the ability to say things that upset people, that are controversial, that make people uncomfortable--sometimes extremely so. The idea of freedom of speech would never have arisen otherwise.

We have a model (the real world) and in this model the first two premises are true. — MindForged

The first two premises are about a conception; they're a priori claims about how you're using terms. They're not about the external world.

What you're quoting is about plugging values into variables, by the way. You're winged horse argument isn't variables.

I'm trying to say that in terms of being everything, you don't need to differentiate anything ("the stuff that's not part of everything") in order to identify it as part of everything.

Hence, differentiation re property Φ is not required to identify something as property Φ.

They're not differentiated in terms of being everything. They'd be differentiated in being say, a Grateful Dead CD and another copy of the same CD. Just like two cards would both be cards, even though they might be different cards.

No one is supporting a monist postion--say materialism--where they're denying various things, they're just saying that all of those different things are material things.

Are you seriously denying that all winged horses are horses or that they have wings? If so then it has to be a terminological disagreement. Otherwise you're flat out wrong because no winged horses actually exist — MindForged

The truth-maker of any statement in logic is never going to be whether something obtains empirically.

The truth-maker for a conclusion is whether the conclusion follows from the premises. What's the case in the actual world has zilch to do with it.

You said earlier that if we weren't able to differentiate x from other things, we wouldn't be able to identify x.

But in this case, no differentiation is possible--anything we point to is part of "everything." Yet we can identify it all as part of everything.

They can't be disputed because there are no facts about them aside from a particular individual having whatever tastes they do. That individual can't be wrong or mistaken in their tastes--and they can't be right, either. There's nothing to get right or wrong. It's just how one feels about something.

It doesn't seem to me that we can choose to believe or not believe anything. At least not simply or directly.

However, I think we can steer or influence beliefs (and preferences, etc.) over time--sometimes a LOT of time--by learning or focusing on or immersing ourselves in particular things . . . although sometimes the results can be unpredictable.

If there is such a thing as the 'set of everything', then, yes, in identifying anything, you would be identifying an element of that set. — csalisbury

So how would that work if differentiation is necessary?

Banno is indeed Banno in every possible world in which I exist. In no world am I a doughnut, a fruit cake or anything other than human. Although in some worlds my name is Tim Wood. I am not Banno in all possible worlds, since one can posit a possible world without me in it. — Banno

It's not at all clear to me why that would be the case, though.

And I don't know how we'd convince anyone that it's not conceivable, because we do things like this in films all the time. For example, a witch or genie might turn a person into a dog, into a biscuit--whatever. It's not at all difficult to imagine that the person is now a dog or a biscuit. So how would we argue that in all possible worlds, the person can't be a biscuit?

There might be problems with the metaphysical plausibility of such things, but no moreso than that's a problem with any counterfactual scenario, because in all of them, we have to pretend that things can be different than they are yet still be the "same thing" somehow, which doesn't really make any metaphysical sense (at least to me as a nominalist).

I've never been at all convinced that the distinction of first and second (and higher) order properties even makes any sense.

Part of the reason why stems from my nominalism. In my view, only particulars exist, and properties are simply the qualities of those particulars. Properties aren't something separate from material particulars and their (particular) dynamic relations. (And likewise, material particulars and their dynamic relations aren't separate from properties somehow--the idea of that is nonsensical--you can't have a particular without it having qualities, without it being some way or other, and you can't have qualities or being some way or other without something (some particular) that is that way)

So the upshot of that is that "properties having properties" is no different than a particular having properties, since properties ARE identical to particulars and vice versa.

Hence I don't really think that the distinction makes sense..

Dunno. But categorical statements - propositions, judgments, statements - all contain an implied if not an actual "is." — tim wood

You mean, for example, "I am thinking" instead of "I think"? (Or maybe "I am thinking, therefore I am existent"?)

Why would it make a difference to phrase it that way (so that we need to do that)?

What I'm surprised with is you agreeing that an observation of thinking has to be made and, in the same breath, saying Descartes' statement is a priori.

I don't see how that's possible? — TheMadFool

So you don't believe that a priori is possible then? Because how would any statement be a priori without thinking being involved?

You need to put an "is" in there. The "therefore" implies it's analytic a priori, but as it sits, that's begging the question. — tim wood

Wait--I'm confused. Where would we put the word "is"?

Synthetic a priori in my opinion.

Could it be possible that his death is premeditated but not occurring at the same time as he perceives it really? — Paul24

I don't understand what you're asking here.

Then, why accuse it of being fallacious since sentiments can’t be fallacious? — TheHedoMinimalist

Because you're forwarding that it can somehow be objective, and you're basing an argument for that on popularity. In other words, I'm criticizing it from the context you're proposing.

You should consider the probability that your offspring will be glad to be born. This fact could help you determine that probablity. I’m not claiming it’s the only thing you should consider but it’s a good start. — TheHedoMinimalist

I'd agree that the probability that your offspring will be glad it was born will help you determine the probability it will be glad it was born. ;-)

That is, assuming that (a) probability really works the way people like to imagine it does, and (b) we could have data for something as ridiculously oversimplified (outside of frustrated teenagers expressing frustration) as whether people are "glad they were born."

If I say that you shouldn’t rob a bank unless you are willing to risk going to prison, this would be a valid should insofar as I am making a pertinent point if you are not willing to risk going to prison. — TheHedoMinimalist

That's still not valid. You could say that if you rob a bank you increase your chances of going to prison, but that tells us nothing about what anyone should do a la validity, which has to do with truth. Shoulds can't be true (or false). That's a category error for them.

The class can't be assumed to have members unless we state that it does. Aristotle didn't see this as a problem because he thought logic ought only consider classes with known existing members, but that's not assumed in mathematical reasoning nowadays. It's too limited. — MindForged

"A class having members" when we're doing mathematics is a matter of whether we're thinking about things in a particular way or not. If you're conceiving of some class with particular properties, especially so that you could utter a statement a la "All x are F" and assign "T" to it, then that class has members, because the domain is what we're imagining, and an xF exists by virtue of conceiving of it (it exists as a conception, which is the domain we're dealing with).

Winged horses could exist but they do not. — MindForged

In which case saying anything about winged horses puts us in the domain of things that we're imagining. If we change domains midstream we're equivocating.

Which Kant was careful to make clear and document. — tim wood

Really, I don't remember Kant stressing that it purely depended on how individuals formulated their concepts, so that an a priori claim that holds for one person might not hold for another. Wouldn't that basically negate the idea of there being any necessary a priori claims in a broader context (rather than, as I noted, only possibly amounting to someone being stringent or stubborn in their concept-usage over time?)

"For each natural number n, "n x n" = "n + n". That does not assume there is some existing n, it's just a statement about how to define an abstract operation, — MindForged

Why would you define an abstract operation, and moreover assign "true" to it (assuming we can even really make sense of that), if it can't be satisfied by anything we plug into the variable (in whatever domain you're working in)?

Door #2 for me, Monty. I don't think it's categorically immoral to cause pain.