If you come from the world of science, which is staunchly empirical, you will naturally tend to think that mathematics should be a bit like science and primarily deal with the physical universe. I can imagine that mechanical, construction, -or chemical engineers will also naturally be attracted to an empirical-constructivist take on mathematics.

If you come from the world of programming and its theoretical approach, i.e. computer science, you will not think like that. In that case, you are already used to high levels of meaningless and useless Platonicity. You should be quite used already to high-level structures that are fundamentally divorced from the senses.

Look for example at this example: AbstractObjectFactory. It is a structure-defining absurdity. To what could that structural abstraction possibly correspond in the physical universe? In fact, this source code does not even "do" anything, which is unusual for software, because the idea is that it would otherwise execute some code, but it doesn't even do that.

Absurdity is what naturally emerges out of lengthy abstraction processes. You obtain structures that mean nothing and that are essentially useless. So, yes, high-level abstract structures are naturally useless and meaningless. I am used to that. It is my professional life to deal with that kind of things. That is probably why I can appreciate the beauty of general abstract nonsense, the flagship of mathematics.

Total nonsense can be breathtakingly beautiful as long as it is consistent. It is mostly a question of developing enough intuition for that. Seriously, structural nonsense can even be pleasant to look at. — alcontali

I come from "both" (they are not separate) the "world" of science and of programming (computer science). Programming is useless until you put the program into a computer to be executed. Before that, it is simply a list of rules to follow independent of any rule-follower. There are even rules to writing a program in a certain computer language. Those rules are meaningless until you follow them in writing a program. In other words, rules without any causal relationship are meaningless. Rules without the reason to have those rules in the first place is meaningless.

It is illogical to severe empiricism from rationalism, or to think of them as opposing views. Making an observation entails using your eyes and brain - making sense of what it is that you are looking at. It is one process, not two separate ones that can be done without the other.

Like I said, you weren't born knowing 3+0=3 because you needed to observe this rule in order to know there is a rule and then observe how such a rule is useful in the world. The rule itself stems from our own observations of individual things and the need to quantify those individual things that share similarities. So these "axiomatic" domains themselves require at least two observations - one to learn the rule and the other to learn what the rule is for.

Look for example at this example: AbstractObjectFactory. It is a structure-defining absurdity. To what could that structural abstraction possibly correspond in the physical universe? In fact, this source code does not even "do" anything, which is unusual for software, because the idea is that it would otherwise execute some code, but it doesn't even do that. — alcontali

I other words, it doesn't qualify as software. If it doesn't execute, or do anything, then the programmer didn't follow the rules for writing a program in that particular language. It's merely observable scribbles on a screen.

CONFUSING GENDER DIAGRAMS, after science and politics got involved — Gnomon

Not science, politics. I already showed that science proves that two genders are the biological realities.

The traditional diagram is also political.

The scientific diagram would have two equally sized circles.

Politics cherrypicks science, or makes up its own facts, like men can feel like a woman when wearing a dress, to support its own agendas.

How can you claim that your belief is true without proof?
— Harry Hindu

Because it is justifiable to do so - that's the normative rule for when we can make knowledge claims. If we needed proof, no claim could ever be made. — Andrew M

Exactly. Which is to say that justification is the only requirement for when someone uses the word, "know".

Now that means that we can sometimes inadvertently make false claims. That is, we can use the word "rain" when there is no rain, which would be a misuse. Normatively, that is okay - we're not infallible and we don't hold anyone to that standard. But veridically, we would have made a mistake. If we have made a mistake then it's not knowledge. That's a logical consequence of the model K2 - it doesn't depend on anyone ever discovering the mistake. — Andrew M

I think we got mixed up again. Are we talking about the state of one's knowledge, or the state of the weather? When the window is being hosed, what is the distinction between, "I know it is raining" and "It is raining."? The latter stems from the prior. You can't say, "It is raining." and say that it is about the weather without having some justification. It would be more like guessing.

If you can't enforce the rules for the use of the term. "knowledge", then that is to say that there aren't any rules when using the term.
— Harry Hindu

The only way to enforce the rules upfront is either to require proof (per K1), which makes knowledge unattainable, or to allow false claims to count as knowledge (per K3).

What we do instead is to enforce the rules retroactively (per K2). That is, if we discover a misuse it is retroactively corrected. For example, suppose in H2 Alice later discovers that Bob was hosing water on the window. In that case, she recognizes that she didn't know it was raining at the time, she only thought she did. — Andrew M

I thought you said that we can't have proof, yet you are now saying that you can have proof retroactively?

If Alice was using the term in the normative way, then she is using it as I have defined it. The veridical use would be your definition. But you have shown that the veridical use refers to something unattainable, while the normative use refers to having justification only. I think we are pretty much in agreement, it's just you haven't realized it yet.

I certainly agree that this is the case in the empirical domain. Science certainly works like that, even though mere experience is clearly not enough as a justification. In addition, such justification will still have to satisfy the entire framework of regulations of the scientific method, i.e. paperwork.

On the other hand, justification in the axiomatic domain does not require experience. It is based solely on provability, which is different kind of paperwork. — alcontali

Provability requires observation. Axioms take some kind of form in the mind, or else how do you know you have them? The forms they take are the forms you have observed.

Were you just born knowing 3 + 0 = 3, or did you have to observe anything to acquire this "axiomatic" knowledge? "Axiomatic" knowledge without any reference to the real world is useless. When untethered from the what we observe of the world, our knowledge is meaningless. What you call "axiomatic" knowledge is really just the rule we learned by observing the world. Some people have an issue with distinguishing between following/breaking a rule with the rule itself. Rules are meaningless without a world in which they are followed or broken.

I don't think you're on the same page. The tautology: X=X comes from our biological capacity to grasp identity. It is a representation/model of one way in which humans understand and navigate the world. THE way really. — Mac

I don't see how X=X represents how we identify things. This is essentially saying Mac=Mac. What does this tell me that I don't already know? If I were to ask, "What is Mac?" and you reply Mac=Mac, then is that all there is to Mac? Or does Mac=Human being + English speaker + X + Y, etc.? Identity, in the way you are using the term (that has nothing to do with the mathematical property of identity so I don't understand why you're using a different mathematical property to argue your point) is a way of taking all of your Xs, Ys and Zs and putting it under another symbol, "Mac", to make communicating all of your Xs, Ys and Zs more efficient.

When it comes to being you, you are much more than a name, right? You're more than just some scribbles on a screen. Scribbles on a screen are observed and interpreted just as your body and behavior are. I can distinguish scribbles from bodies. Names are not bodies and their behaviors. Names refer to, or are about, those bodies and their behaviors. So, identity is not a case of x=x, it is a case of x=a + b + c. My identity would be y = a + b + d, and so on.

What about a computation that results in a number with an infinite number of decimal values? It seems to me that word-use along with number-use are approximations. Unless there is some new mathematical discovery, our binary symbols (words and numbers) can only approximate the analog world.

Knowledge is an approximation - using existing rules to interpret current sensory data. Our rules are our justifications. We have a rule that water on the window is an indication that it is raining. Having experienced water on the window along with the state-of-affairs it raining numerous times is justification that it is raining. If you only experienced rain once with water on the window being the indicator, you don't have justification, or a rule. Justification/Rules comes with experience.

They are very related. And dependent in this case. — Mac

Really, show me a excerpt from a book on evolution by natural selection that refers to the reflexive property of x=x.

x=x is the reflexive property. x+0=x is the identity property. Maybe this whole thread is based on a misunderstanding of algebraic properties.

I didn't. There's a difference between making a claim that it is raining (which I did not do) and presenting a hypothetical within which Alice makes a claim (which I did do). — Andrew M

Then your talking about something that no one knows anything about. So how does one get to know it is raining?

You're using the word "know" in the sense of K1 again. On K2, you know that you used a word correctly when you have a justified and true belief that you did. You don't need a guarantee, you just need those conditions to be met. — Andrew M

How can you claim that your belief is true without proof? If you don't need proof that you are using the term correctly, then it seems that thing you don't need proof of isn't a necessary component of "knowledge", or it's not important to know when you're using "know" correctly.

If you can't enforce the rules for the use of the term. "knowledge", then that is to say that there aren't any rules when using the term.

Simple. 3+3=6. A pattern that is useful.
— Banno
Useful for what? Why is a pattern useful? — Harry Hindu

Whatever you like.

Sometimes we impose. — Banno

How is 3+3=6 useful for knowing how much of my income the government wants? If the government wants 50% of my income, do I just write 50% on a sheet of paper and then give it to the government? Are we just writing scribbles with arbitrary rules? If so, then why isn't the government content with a sheet of paper with the scribbles 50% on it? What is 50% OF something? What does the "of" mean?

SO maths is made up, and we find - "discover" - ways to use it. — Banno

The symbols are made up, but what they refer to isn't.

Your are just saying it's bad philosophy, and yet it's the reason we can do math. If there were no property of identity, the human could exist as it does. This notion is so obvious in us but that's only because it was one of our earliest evolutionary adaptations. — Mac

It appears that you are confusing biology with mathematics.

x=x being true, can be put in words as 'the necessity of identity.'
If that is understood, now; — Monist

I don't understand how x=x means "necessity of identity". What are you trying to say when you write x=x. or "necessity of identity"? What kind of identity are you talking about and why is it necessary?

I did not understand the underlying reason of your statement:''words are not the thing itself'', how did you come to the conclusion that I am talking about the words. And how did you relate that conclusion with the word 'identity', without considering the concept of identity. — Monist

Because you are talking about "identities" and identities are words that refer to some thing's attributes for the purpose of categorizing those attributes under one word.

Words are things. Agreed. x can be anything, including a word. Agreed. What has this to do with the context here? — Monist

Then, you tell me because I still don't understand the point of your question, "Why x=x?" It doesn't have to be a word we are talking about. What does anything have to do with the context here?

Where did you see that I am defending that x=x is true, I do not know. — Monist

How about in the very same post you replied to me?

x=x being true, can be put in words as 'the necessity of identity.'
If that is understood, now; — Monist

It is important to talk about a thing being itself, to understand what constitutes the being of a thing. For example; if identity is false for things, nothing may even exist. I try to catch what is going on, and why I do that is explained in my other reply. — Monist

How is talking about a thing being itself different than just talking about the thing to understand what constitutes the thing. You seem to be hooked on this word, "being". What do you mean by, "being". How is it different than saying a thing has these particular attributes that we group under one word, - it's identity. Being Monist entails being conceived by their parents and being raised in the very place they were raised. What new knowledge have I acquired about Monist that I already didn't know? To say that Monist is being Monist doesn't give anyone anything useful to explore. x=x is simply redundancy and redundancies are not useful. It seems that identities are useful when talking about some thing without having to talk about all of its attributes. We talk about its attributes when we use the word that we have agreed upon that refers to all of those attributes.

You can talk about many things about the thing, one of them is their identity. — Monist

Is it? Is the label that others put on you, part of what makes you you, or are you you prior to being labeled by others? It seems to me that identities are what one places on another. You are you prior to being identified and identification is useful when you don't want to spend time talking about attributes. Others can describe you. Their description is your attributes. Your identity is a word that refers to all of those attributes.

The absurdity of rational thought constituted on axioms is okay, but me questioning it is not... I prefer being free. — Monist

Rational thought can't be absurd, or else it's not rational.

What do you mean by identity? x=x is a mathematical equation and mathematics deals with numbers, which are not identities in the way you seem to be using the word. In 32 = 32, what is the identity? What are we talking about here? What is 32?

That it's not raining is the state of affairs stipulated in H2. That's prior to any claims. — Andrew M

That's strange. It was your claim that it is raining, not some state-of-affairs that it actually was raining. How do I know that you are right, when all you have to show is your justifications. If you can make a claim and assert that that is the state-of-affairs stipulated, then somehow you have gained true access to the world. How did you do that?

How do you guarantee that your claim is true? How do you show that your claim is true for it to qualify as using the term "knowledge" correctly?
— Harry Hindu

There is no guarantee. Alice can show that her claim is true in H1 by pointing out the window since that is what justifies her belief. She can't show that her claim is true in H2 since her claim is not true in that hypothetical. — Andrew M

If there is no guarantee, then you can't know that you ever used the word correctly. There is no way to correct it's use, if you can't guarantee that your use includes the truth.

You're asserting K1 here and the rest of your questions assume it. Knowledge on K2 and K3 does not require proof. They require justification, which Alice has since her belief was formed by looking out the window. Thus she knows it is true in H1 on K2 without proof. Interestingly, she knows it is true in both H1 and H2 on K3 (again without proof). That's because she can have false knowledge on K3. — Andrew M

You can prove you have justification, but you can't prove you have truth? What do you have to know in order to use a word correctly? Do you agree that word-use can be picked up and used without really knowing what they mean? For instance, when a toddler hears their parent say "Damn it!" when they get angry, and then copy it, do they really know what they are saying? Is there a difference between using words and understanding what words mean? It seems to me that we can use words that appears to be the correct use, because everyone else uses it that way, but there are cases where mass delusions exist and people use the same words like "I know the Earth is flat" without knowing the truth.

Any word can be counted as a label then, that perspective does not help much. — Monist

Why? Words are things. If x is a variable, then x can be anything, including a word.

And again, we are not talking about the x`s on your screen, which have different locations :-)

We are talking about a thing, being itself.

I should have used the word variable instead of unknown, in my language, we call that variable idea unknown. Semantic problems... — Monist

I doesn't make a difference. If you don't know what x is, then how can you say it is equal?

Why talk about a thing being itself? What problems do you hope to solve, or answers you expect to get?

Why not just talk about the thing, as opposed to the thing being itself? How is that any different than talking about the thing being itself?

And absurd is okay — Monist

No it's not. Philosophy is rife of absurd questions. Some questions just aren't worth asking.

Why is identity necessary — Monist

Does identity exhaust what it is for the thing to be itself? Isn't an identity a label? A label is not the thing. Words are not the thing itself. Are you talking about the thing, or what we call it? Both are different things that have a relationship with each other.

Simple, x is an unknown value, x=x is the principle that it is a value. — Monist

If the value is unknown, how can you say they are equal? It seems that you need to know what x entails for the = to be useful. x does not equal x because both x's are on opposite sides (they occupy different space and are typed at different times on the screen (one is after the other) of the =, so I don't know what you mean for two different x's to be equal.

Simple. 3+3=6. A pattern that is useful. — Banno

Useful for what? Why is a pattern useful?

Let's go back to their origins. How did humans come up with arithmetic? Probably when it became useful to track transactions and taxation. And that's not arbitrary. — Marchesk

Thats why I proposed the rule that Banno hand over 50% of his dough. I thought we should start where the ancients did when the rules were meant to be applicable in the world.

Instead of 'apple' try 'thing'. Saying "a thing" while pointing at the thing does not explain why the thing identical to the thing. It does not explain the relation between the thing and the thing. x=x does, it simply tells that the thing, is itself. The point is, why? :-) — Monist

There is no such thing as a thing that has a relationship with itself. Things establish relationships with different things.

Again I don't even understand the point of your question. I dont understand the differece between x and x=x. Why not just say x? In saying x, you are saying what it is. x=x is just redundant information and therefore useless.

I don't understand what "bisexual" means if "homosexual" includes being attracted to the opposite sex as well.

If your answers were applicable to others, then they wouldn't be subjective. I thought you agreed that there isn't an objective morality?

What makes you think any ethical/political answers you have would be applicable to anyone else?

How do you know anything about me to know that what is good for you is good for me?

I rarely participate in ethical or political debates because there are no objective answers. Why would I be interested in answers that only work for you (ethical - subjective)? If they work for me and others, then the answers are more about the world (scientific - being the same species (sociobiology) and members of the same culture and environment (geography) - objective), and not just about you.

"Rules" is probably the wrong term to use. Any mathematics without real-world applications would be the game you're looking for. Knowing how many miles to the next rest stop and how fast you are going isn't a game when you really need to empty your bladder. It produces true knowledge about you and the world. Is your game useful for anything outside of this thread?

Well, what do you do so you can give half of the fruits of your labor to me?

Math games with arbitrary rules are a useful waste of time. If you really want rules, reality has some for you. For math or language to really be of any use, they need to inform and predict the world as it was, is and will be.

"an apple is an apple", but why? I do not get why any certain thing called 'x', should be 'x'.

The simpler it gets, the complexer explaining it. — Monist

I really don't get the reason why anyone would ever use that phrase, "An apple is an apple.", unless they're just playing words games, which isn't a complex thing at all.

How is using that phrase different than saying, "An apple" while pointing at an apple? Is your pointing the equivalent of = ?

Songs and poems are examples of language games, or a play on words - meant to be vague so that it can generate arbitrary interpretations. In this sense, poems and songs are like rorschach tests.

Normal language use is not a game. It is a means of transmitting information from one mind to another.

Many people confuse the two. This is how they get offended by words because they interpreted the words differently than what was intended. If what words mean are how they are used, then the user is the one that imbued meaning in their words, not the listener or reader. The listener or reader should be interpreting the speaker or writer's intent, not their own, to get at the meaning of the words. So when someone says, "Happy Holidays", their intent isn't to be offensive to Christians.

This summarizes your problem:

Knowledge requires justification and truth — Andrew M

A proof is a guarantee of the truth of one's claim. — Andrew M

How do you guarantee that your claim is true? How do you show that your claim is true for it to qualify as using the term "knowledge" correctly?

You don't. Knowledge doesn't require proof. It requires that one's belief is both justified (a standard that is lower than proof) and true. — Andrew M

But the only way to know it is true is to have proof. Until you do you don't know when to use the word, "know". If you can't prove your claim is true, then you are misusing the term, "know". If you can't ever show that your claim fits one of the requirements of knowledge, then how can you ever use the term?

So, you seem to be saying that knowledge is something that we can never attain because it requires it to be true, but we never know it is true, so how is it that we know when to use the word, "know"?

In H2, K2, who is claiming that Alice does not know it is raining, and what proof do they have that their claim is true?

Banno subtracts 50% of his dough and adds it to my dough. It's a rule. Give up your dough, Banno.

Domesticated sheep? I was asking about species that developed naturally as a result of natural selection. Ironic how the only species you can point to are ones that were domesticated by humans.

You need to read up on penguins, sir, plus countless other species if you don't think animals engage in gay, lesbian, or bisexual activity. It really is pervasive. — BitconnectCarlos

Point out the study that shows individual organisms of these species establishing same sex relationships while abstaining completely from heterosexual relationships. Only humans do that. At best other organisms are bi-sexual as opposed to strictly homosexual.

Yet we have to answer questions about ethics. Even if we cannot escape our subjectivity, the questions are many times very important and leaving them unanswered is a choice that can have serious consequences. Many times we have to answer political (and ethical) questions even if we wouldn't want to. — ssu

Right. Since its subjective, the answers will be subjective. Search yourself, not this forum, for the answers to your political / ethical questions, and don't bother posting your answers because they will only be applicable to you.

When political correctness is brought up it is usually to point out where politics is putting its nose into business it shouldn't.

The Human Nature controversy in recent years seems to be centered primarily on Gender issues. If God created Man & Woman for distinct roles in the world, then where do LGBTQ humans fit into the scheme of things? Are those who refuse to remain in their rigidly-defined physical and social niches, somehow defying the law of God? Even for those who are not concerned about the laws of God, what about violating the laws of Nature? — Gnomon

Darwin didn't dispose of the idea of two sexes, nor did he blur the line between species in general. His theory blurred the line between man and nature - taking humans from their place as special creations of God and firmly placing them in the natural world. He proposed a theory of sexual selection where one sex selects features of the other sex that end up being carried over to the next generation. Sexual dimorphism is the result. Those qualities define the functions of the sexes today.

We don't see LBGTQ in other species, only in human populations. This tells me that humans are diverse and versatile in their behaviors and societies are what put limitations on those diverse behaviors.

The idea that sex is only for procreation is a conservative notion. Sex is a social behavior that can lead to procreation but is also a means to solidify personal relationships with other members and to relieve stress. Thanks to humans' intelligence and form (bipedal with opposable thumbs), the variety of behaviors humans can engage in can be diverse. In this sense, men can wear dresses and still be a man, but society expects different behavior from a man and limits his varied behavior. So in order to circumvent the limitation of society, they try to change into a woman so they can wear a dress. This is wrong because it just reinforces those limitations on other women who think that they don't have to wear dresses to be a woman. A man can wear a dress and still be a man. The body type of a human doesn't prevent a person from wearing a dress or pants. Society is preventing it, not our morphology or functions of our form. So wearing certain clothes is not what defines a man or a woman. One's species and sexual morphology and functions determine whether one is a man or woman.

After a brief review, I get the impression that today the notion of fixed categories in nature is held primarily by Conservatives, both political and religious. But I suspect the topic may be vociferously debated among philosophers of various political & religious views. Non-philosophers may be expected to prefer a simple black or white scheme for Human Nature, but deeper thinkers tend to dissect their topics into smaller chunks, and into rainbow colors. Yet those fine distinctions are not so easily verified by evidence or by appeals to authority, hence leading to an infinite regression of unresolved debates. — Gnomon

This is just wrong.
The fact is that while humans are diverse, we are more alike than we are different. Organisms share features and functions with other members of their species or sex. This allows us to put organisms into groups. These features and functions are not arbitrary creations of the mind.

Before Darwin, different biologists, like Carl Linnaeus, came up with identical groupings of organisms thanks to the nested arrangement of life as a result of evolutionary descent. Darwin's theory explained why there is a nested arrangement of life. The natural classification of organisms itself is strong evidence for evolution.

Take cardboard books of matches, which I used to collect. They don’t fall into a natural classification in the same way as living species. You could, for example, sort matchbooks hierarchically beginning with size, and then by country within size, color within country, and so on. Or you could start with the type of product advertised, sorting thereafter by color and then by date. There are many ways to order them, and everyone will do it differently. There is no sorting system that all collectors agree on. This is because rather than evolving, so that each matchbook gives rise to another that is only slightly different, each design was created from scratch by human whim.

Matchbooks resemble the kinds of creatures expected under a creationist explanation of life. In such a case, organisms would not have common ancestry, but would simply result from an instantaneous creation of forms designed de novo to fit their environments. Under this scenario, we wouldn’t expect to see species falling into a nested hierarchy of forms that is recognized by all biologists. — Jerry Coyne - Why Evolution is True

Only if you think that Human Nature is defined by the two sexes of the human species, as if one's sex, either male or female, exhausts what it is to be human would one think that humans can be put into only two boxes. Sex is only one function of a human, just as it for other species. If procreation were the only function of organisms then the only categories we'd need are "sexual" and "asexual".

Biological sex is based on an amalgam of five characteristics:
- chromosomes (XY is male, XX female)
- genitals (penis vs. vagina)
- gonads (testes vs. ovaries)
- hormones (males have higher relative levels of testosterone than women, while women have higher levels of estrogen)
- secondary sex characteristics that aren’t connected with the reproductive system but distinguish the sexes, and usually appear at puberty (breasts, facial hair, size of larynx, subcutaneous fat, etc.)

More than 99.9% of people fall into two non-overlapping classes using just the characteristics of genitals and gonads. The the other traits almost always occur within these classes. You can do a principal components analysis using the combination of all five traits and you would find two widely separated clusters with very few people in between. Those clusters are biological realities, not mental constructions. Horses and donkeys are biological realities, even though they can produce hybrids (sterile mules) that fall morphologically in between.

Sexual selection is a mode of natural selection where one biological sex exhibits preferences in the characteristics of the opposite sex, and those characteristics (and the preferences for them) are made more prominent in subsequent generations.

If sex were a mental construct, sexual selection wouldn’t work: males would look identical to females. That difference itself suggests that there’s a biological reality to sex, and that this biological reality is what has caused both behavioral and morphological differences between the sexes.

We know when to use the word "truth" when we have a justifiable belief for when to use it and our belief is true.

Note that you keep presuming that one needs a guarantee (proof) in order to know something. But that is an infallibilist definition of knowledge, not the ordinary definition.

So I agree that one can never prove that one has the truth. It doesn't follow that one can never know that one has the truth. That's because the standard for knowledge is an ordinary and pragmatic one, not an infallible and unattainable one. — Andrew M

No, that's the way you used it in this thread. If we use the word "know" to imply more than just a justification for our belief, but also truth, then we'd need proof that our belief was also true to use the word, "knowledge" correctly. You're trying to have your cake and eat it too.

It is you who has provided an infallibist definition of knowledge by making truth a requirement. My definition is the one that would be the "ordinary" definition, as it allows knowledge to be only about justifications, not truth - of which you need proof the claim is true to say that you are using the term "know" correctly.

It appears that either you are just being inconsistent, or we are talking past each other.

There is no objective morality. What is right or wrong for you isn't necessarily the same for me. Any ethical standards we might agree on will be based on us being members of the same species and or culture.

Yes, I believe I wrote something to that effect in my reply to Harry Hindu but that was because I thought he claimed ignorance had some kind of a causal connection to randomness. Later in my discussions with him/her and you, I realized that ignorance of deterministic systems is not a cause of but rather an occasion for, probability. I hope we're clear on that. — TheMadFool

Just as long as what we are clear on is that probabilities only exist in the system of your mind, not in the system of dice being rolled. Determinism exists in both systems. The idea of probabilities are a determined outcome of ignorant minds. When you are ignorant of the facts, you can't help but to engage in the idea of probabilities, just as when you aren't ignorant of the facts, you can't think in terms of probabilities. The system is determined from your perspective, which just means that you understand the causal relationships that preceded what it is that you are observing or talking about in this moment.

Can you think of any point of your life where you were not ignorant of the facts and still thought of the system as possessing probability or indeterminism? Can you think of any point in your life where you were ignorant of the facts and you perceived the system as being deterministic? It seems to me that ignorance and probabilities aren't just a correlation, but a causal relationship.

A proof is a guarantee of the truth of one's claim.
— Andrew M

How do you guarantee the truth of your claim?
— Harry Hindu

You don't. Knowledge doesn't require proof. It requires that one's belief is both justified (a standard that is lower than proof) and true. — Andrew M

If knowledge requires that one's belief is true, but you don't have any guarantees (proof) that your knowledge it true, then how it is that one can claim they have knowledge if they can't prove to themselves or anyone else they are using the word with, that their knowledge is true? If we have no guarantees that something is the case, then we don't ever know when we possess knowledge in order to use the word. If we can never be sure that what we say is true, then how can we attribute truth as a property of knowledge? "Truth" would be ever-elusive, and we would never know when to use the word, "truth" appropriately because we never have any guarantees (proofs) of what the truth is.

So political correctness isn't political or what? I'm not sure what you mean. — ssu

There nothing that is political that is correct. Science determines what is correct.

Her belief represents a state of affairs that has not obtained. Thus her belief is false. However if it were raining (i.e., if that state of affairs had obtained), then her belief would have been true. — Andrew M

So truth is a state-of-affairs where one's claims accurately represent some other state-of-affairs.

Now you just need knowledge of this state-of-affairs called truth in order to make an accurate claim that knowledge entails truth. But you can't because it would require a level or perception that we can never attain - like being the thing you are making a claim about.

No. See above. If Alice's belief were true (i.e., if it were raining), then she would have had knowledge. Yet the justification for her belief (that she looked out the window) did not amount to a proof.

What is "proof"?
— Harry Hindu

A proof is a guarantee of the truth of one's claim. — Andrew M

How do you guarantee the truth of your claim? Isn't this the same as saying that you'd have to know that your claim is true? In order to guarantee the truth of a claim, you'd have to know the actual state-of-affairs, but you don't know if you do, so how can you say that knowledge entails truth? People use "know" and "knowledge" not to claim truth, but to claim justification for their belief. Since we can't have proof that our beliefs are accurate, we only have proof that our beliefs are justified, we don't use these terms as if they bear truth rather than justifications.

In that case yes, but if we say, "It is raining" and it is raining, then we are talking about the actual state of affairs. — Andrew M

What if we're brains in vats? How do you know your not a brain in a vat, or hallucinating when you say "It is raining."?

You can't manipulate irrational people. You can only manipulate rational people.
— Harry Hindu

Please, demonstrate. Do you mean that that it is sometimes easy to manipulate people who think they are rational? — Qmeri

Irrational means that someone behaves in ways that are "random" - meaning you don't have a causal explanation as to why they are behaving a certain way. It may seem like they are irrational from your perspective, but that is your model of their behavior based on your ignorance as to the cause, or reasoning, behind the behavior. It is a possibility that they are irrational, meaning that they have no reasons for their own behavior either.

In order to manipulate something means that you must possess some knowledge of what you are manipulating, not ignorant of what you are manipulating. Manipulation requires forethought and reasoning behind the action of manipulation. It means that you must know what's in another person's mind and their reasons for behaving certain ways in order to manipulate them. If you don't then they are effectively behaving irrationally from your perspective and you are unable to manipulate them because you lack the information necessary to manipulate in any meaningful way.

In other words, you need to know the reasons they behave a certain way (their behavior is rational) so that you trigger or inhibit those behaviors to then say you can manipulate them.

Meaning, his lack of consistent credibility has greatly diminished the impact of his argument. — 3017amen

Many, if not most, people on this forum lack consistent credibility (including Baden and yourself) which has greatly diminished the impact of their arguments across the board. Meaning, you have both said things that are inconsistent across many different threads because it is difficult to integrate all of your knowledge together into a consistent whole. You have both said things that are illogical, like using ad hominems because you don't like what someone is "ranting" about. Attack argument being made, not the person making it or some other argument that they haven't made (straw-manning).

I've already provided the answer to the question in the OP, so I don't see what else there is to "rant" about from either side - that is unless you want to go off-topic and talk about NOS4A2's "inconsistencies". Maybe you might want to start another thread on that because this thread isn't about that.

You can't manipulate irrational people. You can only manipulate rational people.

I haven't read what he said about climate change. The climate changes for many reasons. There's nothing political about that.

If the meaning of words is how they are used in a certain context, then we're mixing up the contexts. For one to assert a political meaning to a word used in a scientific context, would be to make a category error.

But of course, since your goal here is to politicize science under the guise of complaining about the politicization of science that answer will hardly satisfy you. — Baden

Let's try to avoid making EVERYTHING a left vs right issue, NOS4A2.

And science IS politically neutral. Yes, they did it even in the Soviet Union as they did in liberal UK and US. — ssu

If science IS politically neutral, then it is those that perceived science as making a political statement when using some term, like "supremacy", that would be making the category error.

So the error isn't NOS4A2's. The error is made by the very people he is complaining about. I didn't see anything in his OP labeling the writers of Nature as leftists. It seems to me that you have politicized his OP.