Feels like an answer you get in church. At the same time there's enough coherence to maintain it; I guess. Knowledge consists only of things I happen to be correct about. The rest is merely knowledge garnish.

So you're not worth talking to. — frank

Do you really not understand or is this just another lazy spitball?

No shit. — frank

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Notice you're using "darker" to mean bad. — frank

Notice it's a metaphor in a context that doesn't imply relative melanin.

I'm not wrong about anything I know. — Banno

How do you know?

It is simply a statement of uncontroversial fact. — Lil

It is uncontroversial in the context of pure data which this is not. This is a lame attempt at skating through a subtext of implications. It is pleasant to watch racist positions have to attempt to sneak through the cracks where at one time it walked through the door. Ethically, I can't imagine much darker a goal than to take advantage of the lost by teaching them to hate their neighbors for one's own misguided need for narcissistic fulfillment.

So what's the point of the loop de loop? — khaled

It keeps the definition of knowledge consistent with the JTB model of knowledge. Which is an ideal, like a perfect circle, but useful in teaching and discussing the idea of knowledge.

The massive Russian disinformation campaign that has targeted the Right to manipulate the country has been more effective than the massive Russian disinformation campaign that targets the Left.

Are you talking about the justification for assigning necessity or possibility to a proposition? SO your hierarchy has necessary truths at the top, necessary falsehoods at the bottom, and all sorts of contingencies in between?

I don't see what the problem you are trying to solve is. — Banno

In my car are a lot of fluids. One of them is necessary for the car to run. I suppose it doesn't mean anyone of them is more or less a fluid. I thought I saw something. Maybe not.

These are categories of modality, not of truth. — Banno

Is this in the only known system of modality that isn't an implicit hierarchy?

↪Cheshire So what do you want? — Banno

A way to understand the qualification of "necessary" not creating a subcategory of "unnecessary". Or a way that creating the subcategory does not define the creation of a hierarchy of truth. Because, you have claimed there can be no hierarchy. I think you will have to admit there is in fact a hierarchy or necessary carries the same significance as terms you would easily dismiss. Thus winning my genius trophy and solving conclusively all that has or will vex the misadventurers we know as philosophers.

I'd like to make note you quoted the part about not taking a detour and then responded to it with said detour.

You called a truth necessary and claim not to understand a hierarchy of truth. — Cheshire

I think the two are incompatible. One either calls some truths necessary or denies a hierarchy of truth.

I'm not sure about.

You think this implies that a necessary is true in a way somehow different to a contingent truth? — Banno

I'd rather not detour from the point above for obvious reasons.

↪Cheshire
How so? — Lil

It implies a threat which speaks to the emotions in order to propagate the BS that normally precedes it. See Above.

It's a fact. The white genocide conspiracy BS doesn't take away from that. — Lil

It gives it false meaning.

Whites are becoming minorities in many places. — Lil

Yes, this is an excellent example of an

...iteration of the white genocide conspiracy BS that has been poisoning society for hundreds of years. — Cheshire

Excellent contribution.

↪Cheshire Then I think the same question I put to APo, goes to you"
I can make sense of a hierarchy of believe, or of justification. Not so much a hierarchy of truth. Isn't something either true or false?
— Banno — Banno

Well, there lies my issue. You called a truth necessary and claim not to understand a hierarchy of truth. Things are modeled and labeled true or false, so in principle they ought to be considered that way. However, things are nuanced and complicated as well so believing the model is accounting for everything is unreasonable. I would agree the variance might be immaterial, so the model stands. But there is more to things than true or false in practice. My question is whether you are affirming it(the hierarchy) with the term necessary or denying it by dismissing the 'absolute' as a meaningful qualifier.

....varying levels of certainty in a collective sense. — Cheshire

I qualified certainty to mean a public matter so that;

...but thats a curious piece of biography, not a conceptual distinction. — Banno

Doesn't reduce my position to a matter of personal tastes. So, if it's going to be dismissed, then it should be for a different reason.

So you think something could not be absolutely true and yet unknown to us? We believe every absolute truth? — Banno

Last bit first.
We maintain that belief in an absolute truth, should one be discovered, can not be rationally questionable. I believe there are unknown statements that could potentially be absolute truths. I believe there are statements we say we know that fall short of being absolute truths for one reason or another. It's mostly just a metaphysical furniture sale.

Certainty, or truth? They are not the same. To be absolutely certain is presumably to be without doubt, sure.

How does being absolutely true differ from just being true? Truth admits of degrees? — Banno

Wouldn't an absolute truth be the subject of absolute certainty? One can't be certain of __________. So, the absolute nature extends to the subject. But, rightly means what you say it does.

Absolute incorporates a natural tendency to want to qualify truth, because the lack of a perfect source of knowledge implies things are known to varying levels of certainty in a collective sense.

↪Cheshire How does an absolute truth differ from a plain ordinary truth? — Banno

Whatever the most extreme level of certainty would be; denotes absolute certainty or truth. Whether the truth of the matter is critical to support a greater construction of implications determines whether it is necessary. So, unnecessary but equally true.

You might not want to toss the word "hypocritical" around with such abandon. — Banno

Noted, it was intended to highlight perspective not establish a state of affairs. I'm not threaten by the term, so I get a little casual with it.

And most assuredly, they are not the same. — Banno

I agree. But, I don't think this means absolute doesn't carry any weight at all. If an absolute truth appeared in conflict with a statement I would automatically defer to the absolute truth. Or is that just restating the meaning of necessary. Not trying to evade the point.

You really want to give me two targets?

What is added to necessity by saying it is absolute? — Banno

Nothing it's redundant if anything. I think we could switch the two and still convey the same point. Which is basically that the option of denying the truth of the matter is irrational. But, the point of raising it is to highlight that there are in fact reasonable ways to qualify a truth and yet the way it's done seems arbitrary.

Simply put, it appears arguing for the validity of necessity for 15 pages could be hypocritical to dismissing the term "absolute" at a glance.

So a triangulation on an inter-subjectively negotiated point of intersection? Sounds very hermeneutic. — Joshs

Well put. It's been a hard sell.

Objective proof is an illusion — Joshs

Yeah, I'm using it in a relative sense. The secondary goal would be searching for a point of agreement that is itself expected to be a point of disagreement if done correctly. The parties are no longer out to prove each other is correct rather deviated at the same logical point. So, objective or less bias whichever you prefer.

Yes, we prove it to ourselves. Then we can stop wasting our time focusing on surface details of our model ( which is like arguing biblical verses without knowing through what perspective of faith the other is reading the bible ) and try and make its deeper plumbing understandable to the other. — Joshs

Subjective proof is pretty cheap in the world. Have you ever considered an objective argument where the goal is to discover what other fact or matter must also be in disagreement. It forces the process through a lateral flow of logic toward agreement regarding a disagreement.

I don't see the need to over exaggerate the power of their argument. I mean being charitable enough to express their point of view as well as you reasonably can. For example, maybe their argument isn't horrible, but they aren't expressing it well, so you express their argument in a clear way...rather than focussing on how it is poorly expressed.
I agree that the best thing may be to tear down one's own arguments though. The Karl popper thing is ok I guess. I prefer to have some structure — Yohan

I think this is reasonable.

I’d throw out Popper in favor of Kuhn, abandon the idea that we’re aiming to mirror an independent truth , and instead view both positions as valid but pragmatically useful in different ways. To choose one over the other is to make trade-offs in usefulness. The steel man approach may be useful in showing that one side is unable to comprehend the other’s position well enough to pragmatically compare it with their own. — Joshs

I've got 99 problems with this; the first being I'm a Popper fan boy from hell. Assuming anything about a position before hearing it seems to be making unnecessary assumptions. Choosing one over the other is how evolution functions. To decide not to choose 1 or neither; again at the onset seems like adopting a blind assumption. Discussing the usefulness of an unknown also seems suspect. I still think we're in a type of competition of sorts the way it is phrased.

Are you suggesting we prove the opposition doesn't understand what we are talking about well enough to assert we are wrong? Is this the course being navigated?

If I understand what you are saying, this has been around forever in law schools. I've never heard the term "steel man" though. — James Riley

Steelman is a derivative of strawman as I understand it.

So, I rephrase your argument as a way of putting myself in your shoes? — T Clark

Yes, kind of like a double agent. Instead of exploding their argument you improve it. The OP may have something more specific in mind. I'm just giving my take on it. Anything to counter the bias of wanting to win an argument.

Rephrase the opposition in such a way that you can not successfully argue against it.

Name one immaterial object and name one thing you know for certain doesn't exist. — TheMadFool

The idea of immaterial objects and one sided coins.

It doesn't establish proof because we could both be wrong. It's an interesting take but to steelman a position is protecting it from criticism and ensuring it's errors are never corrected. So, I would argue that we try and tear down our own positions and see what's left. I do think there is a better way to argue and Karl Popper defined it as an attitude that “I may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer to the truth.”

Some say racism is learned. Some say racism is an innate defense mechanism.
It seems natural for us to prefer that which is like us. — Lil

The only thing that is natural is our desire to rationalize our flaws. If an individual is raised and surrounded by racist then the perception of 'natural' might be there; but frankly the question itself in this form is highly suspect. Because none say it is "an innate defense mechanism"; that is some racist propaganda if anything. Simply watch children interact and see that racism doesn't exist until created.

There is one sense in which "innate defense mechanism" might be plausible. The human mind likes to think of itself as important and valuable. When everything in it's world says otherwise it might cling to irrational reasons to ascribe value and importance to itself as an innate ego defense mechanism. If I'm better than XYZ then I must be valuable. Any other context looking for rational racism is just another iteration of the white genocide conspiracy BS that has been poisoning society for hundreds of years.

In the late 1800s a US senator proposed closing the patent office because everything that was worth inventing had already been made.

I was wondering if their is any proof that their is an unlimited amount of ideas that humans can come up with. — Maximum7

You don't actually require an unlimited number of ideas unless you plan to live forever. So, demands of an infinity can be set aside I imagine. I would go to the local home supply store and take a look at the number of vacuums for sale. There is really nothing that can truly be called a singular idea in that it can't be driven further or deviated slightly from to produce something new. And even if all these are exhausted there is the matter of optimization. According to the law of thermodynamics all systems leak some amount of their inputs which implies every system can always be optimized for increased efficiency. So, the question really becomes can even a single idea be truly exhausted much less our capacity for new ideas. Credit rational inference the greatest philosopher we have known.

So a simple solution is to leave out "absolute, objective". — Banno

Unless you are discussing the LNC. As a necessary truth is certainly absolute and objective; no?

↪Cheshire Many probably have landed at absolute truths, but they probably either cannot communicate them or separate them from non-absolutely-true beliefs. — Cidat

I would tend to agree. As Banno demonstrated there is nothing preventing us from seeing and uttering true statements. However, as theories get more complex and rely on increasing amounts of evidence the chance of error increases leading to what some call approximations to absolute truth. As a result we can hold truth as tentatively true awaiting either increasing confidence as they pass our tests or their falsification and replacement with better approximations.

Regarding the idea of communication I tend to deviate from the belief their is some perfect way to speak. Even if I did produce the perfectly objective phrasing there is no guarantee it will be understood exactly as I meant it. So, the world is real and we have access to it, but in the process plenty of mistakes will be made and others will be uncovered. It seems like our job is to decide the degree of skepticism this rationally implies. Interesting topic.

Funny thing is he's a thread over arguing how adding "absolute objective" is an empty term. At the core both are a complaint of adding extra words that carry some intrinsic ethereal value. Which maybe isn't necessary or not.

But your original accusation was that 'I' am contradicting myself in holding it to be contingent. So to make good on that charge you do not need to defend its necessary status, you need to show how believing it to be contingently true commits me to affirming an actual contradiction. — Bartricks

And presumably that there are no necessary truths is not a necessary truth - after all, if it were, you would be contradicting yourself. — Banno

You laid out a compelling argument for specific evidence. Banno produced it.
The negation of "necessary" must be at least equal to the force of it's assertion. Now, the LNC alone not necessary; but nothing necessary just means we throw out the LNC because it's not nothing. Poor strategy for such a long reach.

But I would disagree with the sentiment that age = amount of information. A person that died in 1856 have no knowledge of how WWII ended, yet a 10 year old that has watched or been taught anything about WWII would. Thus in this case the child has a larger amount of information then someone that is several centuries older. — Bradaction

Actually, this is non sequitur. I think you can find it. Technically 2 of them.

If an omniscience child were to suddenly appear in the world, would that child's view be rejected simply because they are a child. — Bradaction

Yes.

If the question is information instead of age, then the statement should be, 'you lack the information to understand,' instead of 'you're too young to understand.' — Bradaction

I agree.