I think we all know what a shit-storm looks like. — Baden

No we don't all know that. It is exactly the distinction between a vigorous debate and a shit storm that constitutes the topic of this thread. Moderation is inevitably controversial, and inevitably develops or degenerates inside the very practice that it regulates.

Your moderating response to this thread illustrates that fact, and in so doing illustrates the very danger I was trying to indicate. Clearly, the rules have changed as a result of this thread, because the exemplar thread had already been brought to moderators attention and no action was taken.

I think your action was premature as a clamp down, and overly tardy as routine; it makes it more difficult for me, and probably others, to speak to the subject freely.

I'm not wanting to start a campaign here, — unenlightened

... but unfortunately, you responded as if I had. So, what does a shit storm look like, and how can we all avoid contributing to them?

For the record, I've now excised Agustino from the discussion. — Baden

Well that's my op exemplar thoroughly undermined. What shall we talk about now? Do you like fishing?

Whereof one cannot speak, let's make a word for it. The 'immeasurable' or something. That which breathes fire into the equation. Is it not a great tragedy, that this side of religion seems always to be lost to 'the institution'?

If I say 'thirdness', it might invoke the Pierceans to engage a little in the doctrine of the Trinity, or of id, ego and superego. Note, by the way, that that particular doctrine is that of the ego - one might as well call it the superego and the subego. God, man, nature.

Necessarily, one makes a distinction. And there is the triad; one, and the distinguished this and that.

The unseen seer, the ego, the crucified, the invisible storyteller, or even the visible but neglected storyteller about whom the story is not, unless by happenstance it is, but even then it is -by time - distinguished, the protagonist from the storyteller, and still I haven't progressed beyond the subject of the sentence, I, the speaker, (you know who that is stolen from), indulge myself in a deliberate confusion of language, because there is a folly of wisdom that thinks it can encompass even itself, let alone the world, let alone God.

I hope I will be forgiven for talking - even thus loosely - about what the wretched monk says, rather than the despicable 'ism that he embodies. You are all fake philosophy, arguing about who is fake philosophy rather than exposing failures of thinking and conceptualisation. Start playing the fucking ball, not the man.

Surely real is grrreater than fictional. — jorndoe

That Ruth is stranger than Richard is itself a happy fantasy. No! Fiction wins every time, and on every measure. It is more potent, more satisfying, more congenial, more complete and more consistent. You have been deceived by fake news. And there is the proof of it.

2. Ariel would be grrreater if not just fictional — jorndoe

What's the basis for this? Is a real detective greater than Sherlock Holmes? I think not! Is existence not more so a limitation and an impediment?

Am I wrong? — TheMadFool

Yes. Complexity is more than a nothing but. My bed is made of wood, but I do not sleep in a tree.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Smullyan

???

And how do we talk? Through propositions. — TheMadFool

Propositions about the world, evidenced by the world. Not propositions evidenced by propositions. The way out of the circularity of talk is not to start with talk.

We apprehend the meaning, if there's one, of the universe through propostions. How else could we do it? — TheMadFool

Rubbish. We apprehend the meaning or meaninglessness of propositions through the universe. First the world, then we can talk about it. And we talk sense to the extent that we conform our talk to the sensible world. Logic merely tells us how we structure our talk.

no proposition can be stated without evidence — TheMadFool

Well there's a self-defeating proposition for you. Evidently it has been stated without evidence, and that is evidence that it is false, even if you hadn't been paying attention to current affairs.

The proposition that all men are mortal can be easily defended with a suitable weapon; each doubter slaughtered strengthens the evidence, which does not consist merely of propositions, but of corpses.

I'll say it again, in case anyone missed it: evidence does not consist merely of propositions.

This other, non-propositional stuff is sometimes called the world, or the ground of reason. It's what everyone except philosophers and politicians talks about.

Sounds like a complete nightmare, unjust, punitive, unsafe, inhuman.

It would be like promising to get rid of money... — Marchesk

Yes. I wouldn't promise to get rid of money, but I might point out that it is beneficial to obsess a little less about it, and focus on other stuff like social care and all the other ways we have of relating.

Literally every society engages in some form of retributive justice. — Marchesk

Well what hasn't been done cannot be done and must be a bad idea. I concede.

It is particularly difficult to scale up your admirable approach when the economic and social structure of large portions of society are crumbling. People don't just feel "disempowered" and marginalized; they are disempowered and marginalized--often by design. — Bitter Crank

I'm having a hard time even defending the idea that it is possible or reasonable, I'm not expecting to get elected any time soon.

"all punishment is senseless" is a totally interventionist statement suitable for law and order types. — Bitter Crank

Exactly so. Like many unthinking sloganeers, you don't know the difference between law and order and punishment, and resort to sarcasm rather than start thinking seriously. As if sarcasm is a suitable punishment for my wooly thinking.

Law and order are not the same thing; intervention and punishment are not the same thing. We have a lot of law, and a lot of disorder, and a lot of punishment and not enough intervention.

I don't know who will execute the kindness and caring program for felons -- you don't like psychologists and their kind, so I guess it will be up to some other group of mechanics. — Bitter Crank

Again, you make a careless misreading of my position which I made very clear in a number of posts, that it is scientific psychology that I don't like, and I don't like it precisely because it takes a mechanical view of humanity. Your 'guess' is entirely wrong again.

So, start again. By 'punishment' I mean an action intended to make another unhappy in some way, as a way of controlling behaviour, their's, and that of others. I emphasise the intention, to encourage you to see that actions to intervene to control behaviour can make another unhappy without being a punishment. So I might turn off the tv and internet until homework is done, but the intention is to get homework done, not to punish for it not having been done.

Punishment is also for the victims and society's sense of justice. — Marchesk

Yes. My loss is ameliorated by the perpetrator's loss; its called retribution, and society's fear is ameliorated likewise. Fear and pain becomes anger. I don't deny that it happens, I deny that it makes any sense as a way to make a happy and cooperative society.

The grudger tactic you talked about is rather set up in the experiment by leaving no other option to control the miscreant. Always a good way to get the result you're looking for.

You take an extreme non-interventionist position. I — Bitter Crank

No I don't. And don't you just hate it when folks attribute the wrong 'ism to you. Let's have lots of intervention, and lots of social control, but let's base it on treating folks decently as far as possible, even if they are arseholes, because we don't want society to be the biggest arsehole of them all.

Come on, unenlightened: putting armed robbers in prison for 5 years isn't bullying. — Bitter Crank

Come on BC. I have suggested no such thing. Protection of society is a jolly good idea, and in extemis, I'm even for killing the big shits if there's no other way of stopping them. I have already made that clear to anyone who bothers to read my posts carefully. Prevention is not bullying; imprisonment as prevention of repeat offending is not bullying. I know what bullying is. Bullying is using threats and violence to coerce. It is a bad way to get people to behave well. Just to be clear, lock the robbers up, and treat them well, having disarmed and convicted them is my policy.

I am curious: does this position apply to white-collar criminals, as well? That is, should Wall Street traders who commit fraud, or people like Bernie Madoff who operate Ponzi schemes not be punished? — Arkady

I'm not sure how they can be prevented from reoffending. If they need locking up to protect the public, lock 'em up. Same with drunk drivers, or whatever. I don't think White collars should make a great deal of difference one way or the other.

How effective do you think is your philosophy in practical terms? Does it work? — TheMadFool

I'm not sure it would be that much different to what goes on at the moment. Prisons would be less punitive, more educational/therapeutic perhaps. Death penalty does not exist here (UK) already.

I feel that sometimes the only reason someone holds back on committing a crime is the threat of punishment. — TheMadFool

That's called deterrence. But I call it bullying. Sometimes, deterrence works, as you say, as a prevention. Ad sometimes there is deterrent effect anyway of measures to prevent crime. So if we lock up murderers to prevent them murdering, that will perhaps deter people.

But I hold to the principle that it is both immoral and ineffective to rely on being unpleasant to one person to deter another, or to persuade by bullying and threats. Respect and kindness better makes people more amenable. Lots of folk disagree with me though.

As a penalty?

If someone is about to run into the path of a lorry, one has to prevent them. It might involve some violence. Similarly, one has to prevent the mad axeman from hacking people to death, and that might even include lethal force. But it is not a punishment. The death penalty for someone who has already been restrained is indeed senseless, unless we are unable to continue the restraint. But that is because all punishment is senseless, not because we all have to die.

Punishment is never sensible. If someone is unpleasant, they are not made more pleasant by being unpleasant to them.

One needs to prevent unpleasantness if possible, and if the situation is desperate, killing an unpleasant person might be the best preventative course, if the restraint of imprisonment cannot function for some reason. It may even be merciful, though mercy-killing is a very unsafe principle.

It's a bad thing to judge, m'kay? — Question

If that's your judgement, you have poor judgement in your own judgement.

I'm just responding to your statement that judging is a bad thing. It's really not. — Hanover

It's a bad thing if you have bad judgement; that's my judgement anyway.

Was that three? I lost count.

Look after your children, and look after your parents. Play nice, and nothing else matters. Nobody knows what they are doing, and all advice is worthless. You're probably fucked whatever you do, and if not, it's luck not wisdom.

Since this thread is about the implacable forces of the economy, the relevant question is what sort of education is required for an economy that has no use for the masses , either as consumers or as producers.

And the answer is that they need to be taught ignorance and hatred, so they will be happy to wipe each other out. This is best done by starving schools of funds and stressing teachers to the max, while spreading the notion that the education system is broken, out of date etc. As long as people of good will are turning on each other, protesting that something should be done, parents against teachers, liberals against conservatives, geniuses against idiots, the job is being done. Keep up the good work chaps.

You have basically invented a clever mathematical way of measuring your level of confidence in your guess that the 17th marble is black, based solely on the fact that the first 16 were black. — aletheist

I'm a damn smart dude, but I can't take the credit for inventing elementary probability theory. This is high school stuff that I assumed those discussing probable evidence would be familiar with. I'm amazed at the level of bluff and bluster that passes for argument and understanding in such matters.

If one can be wrong, then one is really talking about (subjective) confidence or degree of belief, rather than (objective) probability. — aletheist

That is a pile of crap of biblical proportions that I am not going to even try and clear up.

.

You did not stipulate any knowledge of how the marbles got into the bag. All we knew was that the first 16 marbles that we took out were black. — aletheist

I'm glad you noticed that. This models the situation with ravens.

This information alone is insufficient to calculate a meaningful probability that the 17th marble will also be black. — aletheist

Then you need to show where my admittedly incomplete calculation has gone wrong, because I think I have shown that the probability is greater than 0.5, and somewhere close to 0.9

Most people would indeed be likely to bet on it being black in that scenario, but again, they would be wrong if it turned out to be white. — aletheist

That's the nature of probability, that one can be wrong. The calculation is of the best bet not the certain bet.

That is a different scenario. If I knew nothing about the contents of the bag, and had already drawn 16 black ones, I might very well be tempted to bet that the last one would also be black - and I would be dead wrong. — aletheist

Let's walk through this elementary probability problem.

Scenario 1. There are 17 marbles in a bag, but they could be any colour in any combination. You take out sixteen in turn, and they are all black. You now know that there are either sixteen black ones, and one non-black, or seventeen black marbles.

Now, scenario 2. How did the marbles get into the bag?

(a). Suppose they were picked at random from a container with equal quantities of each of 5 colours.
Then the chances of the last marble being black would be 0.2 But the chances of getting sixteen black marbles under (a) are 0.2^16. So (a) is rather improbable.
(b). Suppose they were picked at random from a container containing equal quantities of just black and white. Then the chances of the last marble being white would be 0.5 And the chances of getting sixteen black marbles would be 0.5^16 (0.000015, approx.). Still rather improbable.
(c). Suppose they were picked at random from a container with 99 black marbles for every 1 white marble. Then the chances of the last marble being black are 0.99 And the chances of getting sixteen black marbles are 0.99^16 (0.851 approx.).

It would take some rather complicated calculation to arrive at the most probable distribution of the marbles in the container, and thus the exact probability of the last marble being black, which are beyond this probability 101 course. But it should already be apparent that the the figure will come out to greater than 0.5

Therefore, probably, the last marble is black.

And therefore, probably, all the marbles in the bag are black.

And note, if it makes a halfpence' difference to you, that neither the bag nor the marbles have been named.

One more point - you also have to stipulate that this was true when the observations occurred. Even then, it is only strictly true if those observations were simultaneous; otherwise, something could have appeared in the first pocket that you checked by the time that you got to the last one. Furthermore, the fact that your pockets were empty then does not warrant the claim that they are still empty now and will remain empty in the future. This gets at my earlier comment about a universal proposition having to include all potential members in the class, not just its actual members. — aletheist

I'm afraid this is just bluster to save the point. A universal does not have to be eternal in scope, and if one cannot rule out pockets that fill themselves or ravens that turn black when looked at, then nothing can be said about anything. curb your skepticism a little.

To the extent that one has explored the logical space and found it empty of non.black ravens or pocketed stuff or whatever, to that extent it is probable that the space is empty. Bring in all the caveats you like to invalidate the observations, the principle holds if statistics and language mean anything at all.

Not really. Why would you think that? The contents (or lack thereof) of the first 16 pockets have no bearing whatsoever on the contents (or lack thereof) of the 17th pocket. — aletheist

Check out the marbles in a bag scene. If there is one white one and sixteen black ones, would you bet on the white one being the last one out of the bag, or some other place?

But Tom's proof shows no such thing. If I have looked at 16 of my 17 pockets and found them empty, I have probable grounds for thinking that the last one will be also empty.

I don't think so, Tom. I'll let you quote one that rules that not to be a universal. I'll even modify it a bit for you: All unenlightened's pockets everywhere in the universe are empty.

The trouble with ravens is that there are lots of them and it's hard to know if you've seen them all, but if you did see them all, and they were all black, you'd have all the evidence you need.

I have just proved that observational support for for a universal statement is impossible. — tom

Hypothesis: All unenlightened's pockets are empty.

*checks all pockets, finds each and every one to be empty.*

"Hey Tom, all my pockets are empty. I just looked."

If there are a limited number of ravens in the world (which there almost certainly are), does that change whether observations of black ravens (or non-black non-ravens) at least incrementally confirms the universally-quantified hypothesis "all ravens are black"? — Arkady

Well I'm trying to follow the maths. Firstly, if there are a limited number of ravens, then there are some ravens. So we are not saying merely that there are no non-black ravens, but also that there are some black ravens. Then each black raven found in the absence of any white ones decreases the population of potential non-black ravens, and so increases the probability that they are all black.

One cannot put a figure on it though, without counting the ravens and also having some sensible notion of the probability of a raven being non-black, which one can only have if there actually are some non-black ravens, which by hypothesis there are not. I am ignoring here the inconvenience that eggs sometimes hatch into new ravens, as well as those red Martian ravens.

What it comes down to in the end, is not the adding up of black ravens at all, but exploring the range of potential non-black ravens and finding it to be empty; and that is the incremental evidence that there are no non-black ravens.

Edit. Hypothetically, one could explore the range of non-black things and find it to be raven-less just as well as exploring the range of ravens and find it to be non-black-less, and in this sense, black ravens are on a par with green apples evidentially although the limited number of non-black things is intuitively fair a bit bigger than the limited number of ravens, so the evidential significance would be proportionately less and possibly negligible.

So if nothing practically makes your life about love, then it really isn't about love at all is it? — Agustino

Perhaps not, dude, I'm saying how I feel, where I am looking, not listing my achievements.

When does the ring become by analogy an idol? — Agustino

I don't think it does. Perhaps you need to start speaking for yourself here, instead of interrogating me, because I don't know what you're getting at.

Bite the bullet dude; induction is not logical. I have shown it to you every which way, with analysis and argument, and finally with an example from history, described with humour. I'm done.

Then where does my math fail? — Michael

Imagine yourself an Englishman. You have seen {insert number} swans, all of which have been white. You conclude from this evidence that all swans are white with a probability of {insert number} Then you are convicted of unwarranted induction contrary to the rules of logic, and transported to Australia. Where you learn the error of your ways, taught by flocks of black swans.

and evidence of white eggs increases the probability that all eggs are white. — Michael

This is the problem. This what is wrong, and since I cannot convince you, I'll just refer you to Hume.

You seem to be missing the fact that we're talking about evidence for a contrapositive claim, not a different claim, so your analogies are false ones. Again, it's quite simple: — Michael

You seem to be missing the fact that the contrapositive is the same claim - That the intersection of the set of nonblack things and ravens is empty. Both the the original and the contrapositive make the identical claim. And both have the same need for evidence to be of the intersection of the sets and not some other region. But you insist that evidence for some other region having contents is relevant. It isn't. That's what the logic says.

The argument is that if you make a claim about X where X = non-black ravens, and the claim is that there are none, that claim is not evidenced in any way by Y, where Y is any other thing whatsoever from black ravens to pink unicorns to green apples. It's like if I say my pockets are empty, and you show that yours are not. And I say so what, mine are empty. The only evidence is the nothing in my pockets, however many people with full pockets you cite.