Criticisms of Science/Truth [Archive]

Rosa Lichtenstein

6th October 2009, 07:50

The problem with the correspondence theory is that to say exactly what it is that corresoponds with any given statement you have to use the same statement to make that clear.

So, to use your example:

I feel like I want to ask these people "Hey John I heard you had an affair with Jessica" and watch how they would respond, would they say "No, that is not true" and mean "That is not the state of affairs" or something else?

But, translating it from a question to an assertion:

John had an affair wth Jessica

This can only correspond with the fact that John had an affair with Jessica, which is no explanation, since it merely repeats the orignal statement.

To get around this, some have postulated an ontolgy of facts to which these sentences correspond. However, if we ignore the past tense in the above sentence (how can something correspond with a fact that no longer exists?), then we are still not out of the wood.

This is not just because this meta-statement (i.e., something like: 'A true sentence corresponds with a fact') corresponds with no fact, and so cannot be true, it is that facts are rather odd beings.

How do we identify them? In many cases we can't. We can't even count them.

If someone said "Count the facts in this room", you'd not know where to start. If they said, "Count the chairs in this room", you would.

Is it a fact that I have five fingers, or five facts?

Here is part of an Essay I intend to publish in the next few years [CTT = Correspondence Theory of Truth]:

Traditional attempts to account for falsehood faltered partly because of the link they had with earlier versions of the CTT. The latter held that a true proposition must correspond to a fact/process/state of affairs in reality; otherwise it would be false. The CTT will be examined in more detail later, but for present purposes it is sufficient to point out that traditional versions of the CTT made it impossible to explain what exactly it was about false propositions that made them false. If a true proposition corresponds with a fact, then presumably a false one should fail to correspond with it. But, there might not always be such a fact for a false proposition to fail to correspond with. Indeed, if there wasn’t, a false proposition could hardly fail to do so, since it is not possible to fail to correspond with something that does not exist. In that case, paradoxically, it would not be false. So, while the proposition:

E1: Tony Blair is three feet tall.

is false, there is no fact in the world that E1 fails to match in the required manner; there is no fact anywhere in reality (such as, “Tony Blair is not three feet tall”) to which E1 fails to correspond. Nor is there a non-existent fact (namely, “Tony Blair is three feet tall”) to which it does correspond. Of course, it is a fact that Blair is not three feet tall (just as it is a fact that he is not three feet one inch tall…, along with countless other facts there are about Blair), but there is no identifiable part of reality answering to this fact (or the countless other facts) to which E1 fails to correspond.

Of course, this just shows how complex our use of the word “fact” is; even though it is a fact that Tony Blair is not three feet tall, nothing in reality answers to it, whereas something does answer to the fact that he has two hands.

Admittedly, there are propositions about Blair that are inconsistent with E1:

E1: Tony Blair is three feet tall.

But, the CTT (as it is traditionally expressed) mentions nothing of these. And even if it did, it would be of little help: logical relationships between propositions might assist us to decide which are inconsistent with which, but they cannot tell us which are true and which are false (although they might inform us which must be true if others are true/false). Indeed, two or more inconsistent propositions could all be false. For example, “Blair is five feet tall” is inconsistent with “Blair is four feet tall”; both are inconsistent with E1, and all three are false.

Admittedly, it could be argued that E1 fails to correspond to the true proposition that records Blair’s correct height (say, “Tony Blair is six feet tall” (assuming he is)), and in this lies its falsehood. But E1 also fails to correspond with all of the potentially infinite number of false propositions that also record his incorrect height. In that case, E1 fails to correspond with the following:

E2: Tony Blair is n feet tall, for any n other than 3.

And, plainly, E2 is not a fact; there is no part of reality that it represents. Hence, if the falsehood of E1 results from its failure to correspond with the true proposition that records Blair’s correct height (i.e., “Tony Blair is six feet tall”), it must also arise from its failure to match each instance of E2, for any value of n other than 3. So, the falsehood of E1 is not uniquely specified by its failure to match the true proposition that records Blair’s correct height, which means we are no further forward.

Not only that, E1 also fails to correspond with one or more of the following:

E3: George W Bush is a draft dodger.

E3a: George W Bush is not a draft dodger.

and with a potentially infinite number of other sentences about everything and everyone. So, the falsehood of E1 is not to be established by its failure to match the true proposition that records Dubya’s correct military record (whichever of the two it is), nor with countless other truths. Hence, we are even more in the dark.

Again, it could be argued that the falsehood of E1 results from its failure to correspond to whatever height Blair actually has, recorded in the following sentence:

E4: Tony Blair is 6 feet tall.

Since E4 does record an identifiable part of the material world, and E1 fails to match it, E1 is false. Or so it could be claimed.

Admittedly, E1 fails to correspond with E4, but E4 is a proposition, not an extra-linguistic feature of reality. Hence, we still do not have a part of reality that E1 fails to match.

The problem here is that it is impossible to pick out specific items in the world that propositions like E1 match or fail to match. This is because E1 also fails to match (even if it is consistent with) the following aspect of reality recorded in yet another proposition:

E5: Tony Blair weighs less than a Blue Whale.

E5 is also true, but the failure of E1 to correspond with it cannot be what makes E1 false. And if this is so, it is not easy to say what relevance the truth of E4 plays that the truth of E5 does not.

But, there are other, much more serious problems the CCT faces than these; but we can leave that to another time.

mikelepore

6th October 2009, 18:43

It's not at all obvious. In fact, to what does your last post 'correspond'? If nothing, then it can't be true. If something, then what?

It' s not words that can correspond to the truth, but the concept that the fallable person attempts to put into words. The meanings of words are situational -- the alleged truth value of "a dog has four legs" changes if visit a land where "dog" is the word for duck and "legs" is the word for "wings." The words are only interpretable artifacts of something that the person did, in the same sense that footprints are, and this disqualifies the words from participating in the correspondence. Therefore the degree of correspondence has to be between the mind and the reality. In one of my posts, either there is or there is not a correspondence between what I meant to say and the actual working of the world.

Rosa Lichtenstein

7th October 2009, 00:30

Mike:

The meanings of words are situational -- the alleged truth value of "a dog has four legs" changes if visit a land where "dog" is the word for duck and "legs" is the word for "wings."

Well, it seems that this is merely a problem of translation.

It' s not words that can correspond to the truth, but the concept that the fallible person attempts to put into words. The meanings of words are situational -- the alleged truth value of "a dog has four legs" changes if visit a land where "dog" is the word for duck and "legs" is the word for "wings." The words are only interpretable artefacts of something that the person did, in the same sense that footprints are, and this disqualifies the words from participating in the correspondence. Therefore the degree of correspondence has to be between the mind and the reality. In one of my posts, either there is or there is not a correspondence between what I meant to say and the actual working of the world.

But how can a 'concept' correspond with reality -- unless you think that concepts are names of some sort? But if they are, they cease to be concepts.

Therefore the degree of correspondence has to be between the mind and the reality. In one of my posts, either there is or there is not a correspondence between what I meant to say and the actual working of the world

Well, is it a correspondence between the 'mind' and the world, or between 'concepts' and the world? You seem not to be clear, making this explanation entirely circular -- why this will always be so, see the end.

But, even if you are right, the problems I listed earlier simply re-surface at this level. So:

The problem with the correspondence theory is that to say exactly what it is that corresponds with any given concept you have to use the same concept to make that clear.

Plus, as my answer to Calmwinds suggests, you will have an even more difficult problem explaining falsehood -- indeed, this difficulty dogged 2000 years of traditional epistemology that relied on a match between 'concepts'/'ideas'/'minds' and 'reality' to account for truth. This is partly why modern philosophers (post Kant) appealed to sentences to account for truth, since it is what we say that is either true or false, it isn't what's allegedly in our heads that is. And we say things in sentences. If you just said 'Cat', unless it was in response to a question, no one would say 'true' in response. So, the utterance of single words, except in special circumstance like the one I just mentioned, could never be described as true, or false. And the same applies to single concepts.

And, if you can't account for falsehood you can't account for truth, either -- since for something to be true is for it not to be false.

But, even then, the problems I outlined above in my reply to Calmwinds have also dogged this more modern theory. We just do not have a theory of truth that works. [Why that is so, see the end.]

-----------------------------

Why a theory of truth can never work: In order to define truth correctly we should already have to know what 'true' means, or we would not be able to say whether it had been defined aright. If that is so, no definition could help us. So, it's not hard to see why none has so far been able to do so. [This situation is rather unique with this word, since, plainly, we use it to discriminate truth from falsehood. No other word (not synonymous with 'true') does this. That's why it is unique.]

Mo212

9th October 2009, 01:47

Reality is fully integrated therefore there is really no "real" correspondance. Think of it like you being embedded in a 2D surface, you are a chunk of the surface (the universe) looking at *itself*.

Therefore subjectivity and objectivity break down because they both deny that nature is universally connected to itself at all times, we are *derived* from nature, not vice versa, i.e. nature pre-exists our awareness, our perception of objects "out there" is a meaningless thing, since everything is a part of the same whole.

Universe --> Us (universe part) perceiving --> Universe (what we're made of).

Rosa Lichtenstein

9th October 2009, 02:17

^^^Mo212, I am not sure how you know all this.

Sure, nature pre-exits humanity, but I am not sure how the rest follows, or how you know it is true.

Mo212

14th October 2009, 01:49

^^^Mo212, I am not sure how you know all this.

Sure, nature pre-exits humanity, but I am not sure how the rest follows, or how you know it is true.

To know truth is to know a thing exists, so the most basic truth, is existence is truth. Even if you don't understand how the universe works you know that *it exists* and is there (the first absolute truth), so the first knowledge of a thing is that something exists.

Think of it another way: You're driving down the highway at a 100 miles an hour you absolutely are 100% certain that you are able to ascertain the truth that other cars exist and have absolute certainty as to their general position in relation to your own.

The problem with the western enlightenment tradition is that the concepts and words we've inherited are another generations muddled thinking, in the western scientific tradition they use an object-measurement-correlation based theory of truth. But anything that is a derived existence in time (i.e. you measuring the velocity of a ball) by definition necessitates that existence (truth) was always there to begin with to measure in the first place. Hence the logical outcome.

Existence-as-truth principle precedes the empricial school, because in order to measure a thing implies that the ultimate underlying reality was always there before measured in a 'scientific' way.

Rosa Lichtenstein

14th October 2009, 02:25

Mo212:

To know truth is to know a thing exists, so the most basic truth, is existence is truth. Even if you don't understand how the universe works you know that *it exists* and is there (the first absolute truth), so the first knowledge of a thing is that something exists.

And how do you know all this is itself tru? Or is this not another example of a priori dogmatics?

And this can't be right:

To know truth is to know a thing exists

Since it is surely a truth that, say, Sherlock Holmes does not exist, or that the end of a rainbow does not exist, or that perpetual motion machines do not exist.

Indeed, there seem to be as many truths about things that do not exist as there are about those that do.

Think of it another way: You're driving down the highway at a 100 miles an hour you absolutely are 100% certain that you are able to ascertain the truth that other cars exist and have absoutely certainty as to their general position, in relation to your own.

I am not sure how the above helps establish the general points you made earlier.

The problem with the western enlightenment tradition is that the concepts and words we've inherited are another generations muddled thinking, in the western scientific tradition they use an object-measurement-correlation based theory of truth, but anything that is a derived existence in time (i.e. you measuring the velocity of a ball) by definition necessitates that existence (truth) was always there to begin with to measure in the first place.

I am sorry, I could not follow this.

Existence principle precedes the empricial school, because in order to measure a thing implies that the ultimate underlying reality was always there before measured it in a 'scientific' way.

This seems to me an obscure way of saying that you can't measure something if it doesn't exist.

But, who ever thought otherwise?

Mo212

14th October 2009, 02:53

Mo212:

And this can't be right:

You're incorrect, you need to think this through visually in an animated way about the nature how matter (which your body is made of) was organized in space and time. All the constituents of you and your thought and our knowledge existed as matter and energy before matter was reshaped into our bodies. All knowledge has to be made of something (i.e. the detectability problem, in order for you to know anything you must be able to store it somewhere, it has to be made of something that literally exists)

We can ask "what is our thoughts made out of?" or "what is the truth (knowledge) made out of?" and it automatically follows that existent structure and truth are equivalent, but the human mind being so small can only access pieces or layers of that underlying structure at a time.

Consider the experiment: I ask you to think of a picture of a ball, now I ask you whether or not you accept that it exists 100%. If it exists, the by definition it must be a form of truth in order for you to know that it exists (detectabiity necessitates existent structure = a form of truth, since all truths are made of pre-existing matter and energy before you had that thought of the ball, your mind had to make it out of stuff that preceded your thinking about it)

The problem the non-objections you raise - is detectability, anything that is detectable by definition must exist in order for you to detect it.
The rest of your post is meaningless because you are incapable of grasping what I'm saying.

Anaximander

14th October 2009, 07:04

If I may, because I am bored, stoned, and feel like spewing some shit, step in. Semantics and logic aren't my strong suit..

Criticisms of science and truth, in my opinion, should stem from in what way what is called "truth" is implemented and utilized. If science is the route to objective, trans-subjective (haha!), communicable truths, than those who have a monopoly on scientific research inevitably produce both the knowledge of objective fact, and the social function of the fact, or truth..

I think this is how we ended up with nuclear weapons, terrible chemical agents, etc. So long as science is in the hands of the ruling classes, science and its social function (truth) will be for the benefit of the ruling classes.

Science? Good! Boss class science? Bad!

Thank you.

Rosa Lichtenstein

14th October 2009, 07:24

Mo212:

You're incorrect, you need to think this through visually in an animated way about the nature how matter (which your body is made of) was organized in space and time. All the constituents of you and your thought and our knowledge existed as matter and energy before matter was reshaped into our bodies. All knowledge has to be made of something (i.e. the detectability problem, in order for you to know anything you must be able to store it somewhere, it has to be made of something that literally exists)

We can ask "what is our thoughts made out of?" or "what is the truth (knowledge) made out of?" and it automatically follows that existent structure and truth are equivalent, but the human mind being so small can only access pieces or layers of that underlying structure at a time.

Well, I wasn't referring to my thoughts at all but to the truth of sentences about non-existents, which, it seems, refutes your theory --, or what sense I could make of it.

And, of course, we can say false things about objects and processes that do exist. For example, Tony Blair is a revolutioanry socialist; Paris is in Japan; electrons have a positive charge.

So, existence and truth do not always go hand in hand.

Consider the experiment: I ask you to think of a picture of a ball, now I ask you whether or not you accept that it exists 100%. If it exists, the by definition it must be a form of truth in order for you to know that it exists (detectabiity necessitates existent structure = a form of truth, since all truths are made of pre-existing matter and energy before you had that thought of the ball, your mind had to make it out of stuff that preceded your thinking about it)

Are you asking whether the ball or the picture exists?

And, I think you are running together questions about existence with those concerning truth.

For example, I can picture George W Bush swimming in a tank full of sharks. But is this picture true, even though it concerns sharks (which do exist) and Bush (who, alas, also exists), and swimming (which activity also exists)?

Clearly the picture isn't true, even though it concerns things that manifestly exist. [And the picture exists too.]

The problem the non-objections you raise - is detectability, anything that is detectable by definition must exist in order for you to detect it.

I am not at all sure what this has got to do with what I said, nor I am I clear what 'detectability' has to do with truth. It is surely true that the dinosaurs died out. But is that fact 'detectable'? I think not.

The rest of your post is meaningless because you are incapable of grasping what I'm saying.

May I suggest you try to be clearer, then?

Rosa Lichtenstein

14th October 2009, 07:35

Anaximander:

If I may, because I am bored, stoned, and feel like spewing some shit, step in. Semantics and logic aren't my strong suit..

Criticisms of science and truth, in my opinion, should stem from in what way what is called "truth" is implemented and utilized. If science is the route to objective, trans-subjective (haha!), communicable truths, than those who have a monopoly on scientific research inevitably produce both the knowledge of objective fact, and the social function of the fact, or truth.

I think this is how we ended up with nuclear weapons, terrible chemical agents, etc. So long as science is in the hands of the ruling classes, science and its social function (truth) will be for the benefit of the ruling classes.

Science? Good! Boss class science? Bad!

Thank you

Well, I am not sure how one can 'produce the knowledge of objective fact'; are you confusing this with propaganda and/or ideology?

Perhaps you mean that scientists in the pay of various sections of the ruling-class produced, say, nuclear weapons, and in so doing 'made it a fact' that nuclear weapons exist? [Although, I do not prefer this way of speaking.]

But, they also 'made it a fact' that operating theatres, cell phones, and computers exist.

So, even 'ruling-class inspired science' (if that is what it is) is not all bad.

Anaximander

14th October 2009, 07:44

Forgive my way of speaking; I'm not academic! :D

Where, say, the laws that govern processes at the atomic level exist, one had to discover them. This discovery produces the knowledge that we can now claim is 'objective.'

Sure they did, and I absolutely cannot deny the benefits of technology. I would only go so far as to say that technology today has hitherto served to reinforce the ruling class' position, due to the revolutionary dynamic of capitalism.

So, I guess what I am trying to say is that science and technology (and here I split fact and truth, truth being the social role of facts) 'in-themselves' offer great things and are a testament to human potential as yet unfulfilled. In their current institutional roles, I find them to be a hazard.

edit: I think it is reasonable to conflate my conception of truth as a social function with ideology, yes.

Rosa Lichtenstein

14th October 2009, 08:41

In that case, there must be a problem with the truth of what you say. If all truth is ideologcal, then so is what you have to say. In which case, it can't be 'objective'.

I agree with many of the other things you have to say, though.

By the way, I'm not an academic either.:)

Anaximander

14th October 2009, 10:53

Indeed. You have me there. Then again, I didn't say that my assertions are not ideological. I piece together facts, and in asserting them in a social setting (such as this thread) with a particular ideological intention (Marxist analysis), the facts take on a social function, or as I define it, 'truth.'

Didn't mean to derail this thread though. You sure you aren't, with all those essays? Be a good modern Marxist; become a professor, and shack up in the University, far away from the dirty proles! :laugh:

Rosa Lichtenstein

14th October 2009, 11:36

Anaximander:

Then again, I didn't say that my assertions are not ideological. I piece together facts, and in asserting them in a social setting (such as this thread) with a particular ideological intention (Marxist analysis), the facts take on a social function, or as I define it, 'truth.'

Well, I am not sure how you piece together a fact. If it's a fact that the Thames is shorter than the Nile, or a fact that the UK postal workers are going on strike next week, then these are facts whether or not you are an ideolgue or are good, bad or indifferent at piecing things together.

Anaximander

14th October 2009, 11:48

A bit of confusion here, due to bad phrasing on my part.

When I said I 'piece together facts,' I meant more along the lines of putting facts together to create a sum of information.

The postal workers are going on strike next week. A fact. I could use that fact to demonstrate a 'truth,' such as:

"The postal workers are going on strike next week. Those lazy bums!"

or,

"The postal workers are going on strike next week. They are rightly standing up for themselves!"

Where the fact is presented as given, the intention behind my presentation of the fact creates the 'truth' of the fact, or that which is ideological and not revealed by the fact itself.

Rosa Lichtenstein

14th October 2009, 12:03

Anaximander:

A bit of confusion here, due to bad phrasing on my part.

When I said I 'piece together facts,' I meant more along the lines of putting facts together to create a sum of information.

The postal workers are going on strike next week. A fact. I could use that fact to demonstrate a 'truth,' such as:

"The postal workers are going on strike next week. Those lazy bums!"

or,

"The postal workers are going on strike next week. They are rightly standing up for themselves!"

Well, it seems to me that you aren't actually demonstrating a truth, as you put it, but passing an (ethical or moral) opinion about a fact.

Where the fact is presented as given, the intention behind my presentation of the fact creates the 'truth' of the fact, or that which is ideological and not revealed by the fact itself.

Well, a sentence expressing a fact is true already; it it weren't, it wouldn't be a fact. Nothing you can do about that. You can't create a fact or a truth at will (unless it is something in your power to bring about, such as, say, the fact that you wrote that last post of yours).

But then, you might mean that in so far as you wrote a certain sentence, you created a truth. For example, you wrote:

"The postal workers are going on strike next week. They are rightly standing up for themselves!"

Hence it is a fact that you wrote that, and any sentence reporting that fact would be true, hence you created that truth.

Is that what you mean?

Hit The North

14th October 2009, 12:04

Where, say, the laws that govern processes at the atomic level exist, one had to discover them. This discovery produces the knowledge that we can now claim is 'objective.'

It might help you to recognise that the best (and most proper) claim we can make is that we have a knowledge of an objective reality - i.e. a reality which is external to our knowledge of it. 'Knowledge' itself can never be 'objective' as it depends upon human agency and interaction. Meanwhile, the objects or processes that do exist, exist whether we know about them or not. Moreover, our knowledge is never guaranteed to be complete or even accurate, but is historically emergent. For instance, our knowledge about the objects in our own solar system are tranformed over time: Pluto is recharacterised as a plantetoid instead of a planet; an enormous outer ring of Saturn is discovered to be one of the largest objects in the system - although it was unknown until recently.

Of course, the fact that knowledge is socially dependent allows us to understand how it becomes ideological.

Rosa Lichtenstein

14th October 2009, 12:06

BTB:

It might help you to recognise that the best (and most proper) claim we can make is that we have a knowledge of an objective reality - i.e. a reality which is external to our knowledge of it.

What is the difference between an 'objective reality' and a plain and simple 'reality'?

Anaximander

14th October 2009, 12:25

Rosa:

I see what you are saying, but I think it is useful (at least for my method) to separate a fact from a 'truth.' If 'truths' are ideological, then truths are consequently bound up with ethical and moral judgments, as opposed to a base fact, separate from subjective interpretation.

I think our confusion stems from our talking at cross purposes: you are reading what I am saying from a point of view I am not schooled in, what I think is called analytical philosophy. If this is the case, the fault falls on myself.

Rosa Lichtenstein

14th October 2009, 12:50

No problem!

Hit The North

14th October 2009, 12:53

BTB:
What is the difference between an 'objective reality' and a plain and simple 'reality'?

Probably none. I'm doing a belt and braces job in that many people use the term reality in an elastic way: "That's your reality; this is mine." Or to refer to the "fictional reality" of a novel or movie. I just wanted to emphasis the externality of reality from our representations (knowledge) of it.

Rosa Lichtenstein

14th October 2009, 12:59

BTB:

Probably none. I'm doing a belt and braces job in that many people use the term reality in an elastic way: "That's your reality; this is mine." Or to refer to the "fictional reality" of a novel or movie. I just wanted to emphasis the externality of reality from our representations (knowledge) of it.

Well, it seems to me that the word 'reality' here is doing no work at all, and you are better off without it.

We have plenty enough words in ordinary lnaguage to express what we take to be true or false in what is said about the world or our relationship to it and to one another.

Mo212

14th October 2009, 22:45

Mo212:

Well, I wasn't referring to my thoughts at all but to the truth of sentences about non-existents, which, it seems, refutes your theory --, or what sense I could make of it.

It's obvious you haven't understood a word I have said... You have to understand the basics of the process of being able to even think first. In order for you to have ANY thought or ANY perception *at all* you must be capable of determining distinctions (i.e. differences *this is not equal to that*). Our very functioning requires that existence is truth or else you could not determine any kind of difference in anything, to use a metaphor the universe would appear as a plane of white indistinction, everything would appear the same as everything else. In reality you could not even think because the processes of your perception rely on the fact that all perceptions and thoughts are made out of something, they are *derived* in time from previous states.

In order for you to be aware of yourself (self-detection) you must *first exist* and be able to calculate and distinguish differences in order to be able to detect you are there, do you understand now? In order for you to know there are differences between things, this means thoe things you are comparing pre-exist you before you perceived them, because in order process information requires self-recursive feedback (looping or iteration). Your mind is constantly doing comparisons (this thing is not that thing,I am not a rock, red is not green, etc, etc) these gray pixels are not those black pixels unconsciously beneath your awareness, in order for you to even read this, by definition you have to be able to determine that they exist in thefirst place (the first truth) then go on decoding those marks (mapping marks to meaning), but all this implies and necessitates that existence is truth. Since if these words existence was 'false', you could not know of or perceive these words because they wouldn't be posted in the first place.

And, of course, we can say false things about objects and processes that do exist. For example, Tony Blair is a revolutioanry socialist; Paris is in Japan; electrons have a positive charge.

So, existence and truth do not always go hand in hand.

Actually they do because falsehoods exist, therefore falsehood is merely NEGATIVE TRUTH. Since in order for you to KNOW a falsehood, the falsehood as a thought must first be made out of something (exist), the statement has to exist first (i.e. as a form of truth).

Falsehood is representational, (i.e. a form of truth), not actual, consider you draw a square and a circle on a beach, you know that the circle is NOT the exactly the same as the square, in order for you to do any comparison at all you have to understand that TRUTH IS DERIVED i.e. reality (truth) it inherits all the properties of reality.

Are you asking whether the ball or the picture exists?

I'm asking the question: Is your thought a form of truth? And does your thought (the ball) exist? i.e. that the ball exists as a thought is true because in order for you to think about it, your brain has to use resources to make that thought out of something (to store it somewhere) so you can read it back to yourself (think about it).

You're confused because this argument deals with self-referencing nature of the universe.

For example, I can picture George W Bush swimming in a tank full of sharks. But is this picture true, even though it concerns sharks (which do exist) and Bush (who, alas, also exists), and swimming (which activity also exists)?

Yes it is true AS A THOUGHT, people do not have a good understanding of truth and falsehood, every thought you had was derived from a previous real truth (i.e. bush exists, sharks exist, etc) you're just recombining (reshaping) pre existing stuff you derived from reality beforehand.

Now just answer the question: If existence is not truth, does that mean you are false? (because you think you exist and have real existence), I think you should think on the implications of existence not being true.

Clearly the picture isn't true, even though it concerns things that manifestly exist. [And the picture exists too.]

But the problem is the PICTURE EXISTS (i.e. you perceived it) so, if the picture exists and you say it is false, then how can you know it exists? So we can say the picture is partially true (in that the statement's raw information is true (because it exists by definition) but when we say a statement (the picture) is 'false" what we mean is that it is NEGATIVELY TRUE IF the context is trying to map the picture to some other element of reality. So an idea that is 'false' is actually a negative truth (unmapped statement), but only becomes unmapped when you are doing a comparison. Since you can only compare things that exist (in some fashion) by definition.

You need to understand that most human beings don't understand the nature of how perception and thought works and what is required for us to even think at all, once you start thinking about these questions, you realize most people in the world have flawed conceptions of truth and falsehoods.

I am not at all sure what this has got to do with what I said, nor I am I clear what 'detectability' has to do with truth. It is surely true that the dinosaurs died out. But is that fact 'detectable'? I think not.

May I suggest you try to be clearer, then?

It's a complex topic because you need to grasp the concepts in order, and you have to understand what recursion is.

See wikipedias article on recursion (google recursion since revleft is nazi about me posting links for some reason).

Think about how vision works, in order for you to know that their is an environment "out there" photons have to be cast (a ray) has to be cast off a geometric structure and hit your eye's rods and cone's physically in order to excite them in order for you to perceive anything at all, this requires that reality is fully integrated for this to take place.

Your misconceptions come from your lack of background in physics and understanding the nature of space and time.

Rosa Lichtenstein

15th October 2009, 01:34

Mo212:

It's obvious you haven't understood a word I have said... You have to understand the basics of the process of being able to even think first. In order for you to have ANY thought or ANY perception *at all* you must be capable of determining distinctions (i.e. differences *this is not equal to that*). Our very functioning requires that existence is truth or else you could not determine any kind of difference in anything, to use a metaphor the universe would appear as a plane of white indistinction, everything would appear the same as everything else. In reality you could not even think because the processes of your perception rely on the fact that all perceptions and thoughts are made out of something, they are *derived* in time from previous states.

1) As I noted on my last post, if I do not understand you, you need to be clearer.

2) However, I have posted enough counter-examples to your theory to suggest that either you have not thought it through, or you do not understand it either.

Once more, when you say this:

Our very functioning requires that existence is truth or else you could not determine any kind of difference in anything, to use a metaphor the universe would appear as a plane of white indistinction, everything would appear the same as everything else.

You are running several things together, here. While it may or may not be true that some particular thing exists, existence cannot be the same as truth. Truth belongs to what we say, and the simplest thing we can say that is capable of being true is an indicative sentence.

So, if someone says "Cat" (unless this is in answer to a question, such as "What is that animal over there?"), you would not be able to tell if this was true or false. The other person would have to say something like "That cat is brown", before you could decide either way -- true or false. Same with an image.

Now, I gave you an example where several existing things featured in a false sentence, so truth and existence cannot be the same.

Here they are again:

For example, Tony Blair is a revolutionary socialist; Paris is in Japan; electrons have a positive charge.

So, existence and truth do not always go hand in hand.

But you reply:

Actually they do because falsehoods exist, therefore falsehood is merely NEGATIVE TRUTH. Since in order for you to KNOW a falsehood, the falsehood as a thought must first be made out of something (exist), the statement has to exist first (i.e. as a form of truth).

I am aware that falsehood is the opposite of truth, but you specifically said that existence and truth go together; you said noting about existence and 'negative truth'.

This would be like someone saying something like this: "James started the strike", only to be told that Peter in fact started the strike, to which the first person replied "Ah, but I am still right since Peter is not James" (or as you might put it "Peter is NEGATIVE JAMES").

Now, if you want to argue that way, it is easy for me to respond thus:

You say that truth and existence go together, whereas I say that falsehood and existence go together. So, I am right, and you are wrong, since truth is just NEGATIVE FALSEHOOD.

In that way, we will get nowhere.

[Please note that I am not arguing this way, merely pointing out how irrational it would be to do so.]

In order for you to be aware of yourself (self-detection) you must *first exist* and be able to calculate and distinguish differences in order to be able to detect you are there, do you understand now? In order for you to know there are differences between things, this means those things you are comparing pre-exist you before you perceived them, because in order process information requires self-recursive feedback (looping or iteration). Your mind is constantly doing comparisons (this thing is not that thing, I am not a rock, red is not green, etc, etc) these gray pixels are not those black pixels unconsciously beneath your awareness, in order for you to even read this, by definition you have to be able to determine that they exist in the first place (the first truth) then go on decoding those marks (mapping marks to meaning), but all this implies and necessitates that existence is truth. Since if these words existence was 'false', you could not know of or perceive these words because they wouldn't be posted in the first place.

But, I can distinguish between things that do not exist, and could never exist, and for which I could form no picture/image.

For example, I can tell the difference between:

600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00 0,001 human beings and 600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00 0,002 human beings

namely one human being, but there is no way this number of humans will ever exist (or any day soon), nor can I form an image of this number of human beings even if they did.

So, your theory is no good, once more.

We can distinguish such things because of the language we have, and that has little or nothing to do with the sorts of things you seem to think are important.

But, you might respond along these lines:

Your mind is constantly doing comparisons (this thing is not that thing, I am not a rock, red is not green, etc, etc) these gray pixels are not those black pixels unconsciously beneath your awareness, in order for you to even read this, by definition you have to be able to determine that they exist in the first place (the first truth) then go on decoding those marks (mapping marks to meaning), but all this implies and necessitates that existence is truth. Since if these words existence was 'false', you could not know of or perceive these words because they wouldn't be posted in the first place

Well, for you to be able to say such things, you have to master some language or other. So, your mastery of language is the key feature here, not hidden processes going on in 'the mind' of which we have no knowledge, and about which we need know nothing in order for us to be able to use language, and for us to be able to utter truths or falsehoods --, and about things that do not exist.

Falsehood is representational, (i.e. a form of truth), not actual, consider you draw a square and a circle on a beach, you know that the circle is NOT the exactly the same as the square, in order for you to do any comparison at all you have to understand that TRUTH IS DERIVED i.e. reality (truth) it inherits all the properties of reality.

Well, what does this falsehood represent?

This square has ten edges.

Or this:

A vixen is a male fox.

I'm asking the question: Is your thought a form of truth? And does your thought (the ball) exist? i.e. that the ball exists as a thought is true because in order for you to think about it, your brain has to use resources to make that thought out of something (to store it somewhere) so you can read it back to yourself (think about it).

I am not sure what you mean by 'thought' here? Do you mean the content of an empirical proposition, or some sort of mental picture?

If the latter, then I deny that 'mental pictures' are capable of being true or false (and for reasons outlined above).

If the former then such thoughts can be true or false, and they can be about things that do not, and could never exist, and of which we can form no mental images. I gave an example earlier.

Here is another:

Electrons are positively charged, 5,000,000,000 parsecs wide and travel at a speed of 3,000,000,000,000 light years per second.

Now, we can all understand this odd use of language, but not one of us can form a (relevant) mental image of what it says -- even though electrons exist.

So, our capacity to form mental images is irrelevant to our capacity to understand language, or form truths and/or falsehoods.

Now just answer the question: If existence is not truth, does that mean you are false? (because you think you exist and have real existence).

Your question makes no sense at all, since it is only indicative sentences that are capable of being true.

That is why you keep posting such sentences in an endeavour to communicate with me. You don't just post single words, which you would if your theory were correct, or if this conversation were possible:

A: [Utters a name totally out of the blue] Rosa Lichtenstein.

B: True.

Except in very special circumstances, such a conversation would never take place. This one might:

A: Rosa Lichtenstein posts at RevLeft

B: True.

What I think you are trying to say is this: "Is it true that you (RL) exist?"

Notice you have to use a "that" followed by a verb phrase, here, or a name followed by a clause.

So, it is indeed true that I exist, but that does not show that truth and existence are connected, and for the reasons I outlined above.

I think you should think on the implications of existence not being true

Bold added.

But, the implications of this are that this possibility refutes your theory, for even you are prepared to countenance the possibility of the existence of something not being true.

So, I think you should think about the implications of this admission of yours!

But the problem is the PICTURE EXISTS (i.e. you perceived it) so, if the picture exists and you say it is false, then how can you know it exists? So we can say the picture is partially true (in that the statement's raw information is true (because it exists by definition) but when we say a statement (the picture) is 'false" what we mean is that it is NEGATIVELY TRUE IF the context is trying to map the picture to some other element of reality. So an idea that is 'false' is actually a negative truth (unmapped statement), but only becomes unmapped when you are doing a comparison. Since you can only compare things that exist (in some fashion) by definition.

Remember, I am arguing hypothetically, and I am taking the things you say and working out their consequences. I am not committed to this way of putting things, since it seems to me a bizarre way to talk.

So, it matters not to me whether this picture exists, or doesn't, only that if it does, it is false. That possibility alone is enough to show your theory cannot be true.

Put it this way: I could invent a totally crazy theory (say, that truth is triangularity), and then argue that according to your theory, since my theory exists, it must be true!

You would not be able to respond to this without abandoning your own theory.

You need to understand that most human beings don't understand the nature of how perception and thought works and what is required for us to even think at all, once you start thinking about these questions, you realize most people in the world have flawed conceptions of truth and falsehoods.

I am not sure perception has anything to do with this, so whether or not anyone understands perception (and I do not think anyone does, not even scientists), the vast majority of human beings do know how to use language, and by their use of language they also know that the language of truth is intimately connected with their employment of indicative sentences. That is why perception is irrelevant.

It's a complex topic because you need to grasp the concepts in order, and you have to understand what recursion is.

I am a mathematician, so I do not need any lectures on recursion.

Think about how vision works, in order for you to know that their is an environment "out there" photons have to be cast (a ray) has to be cast off a geometric structure and hit your eye's rods and cone's physically in order to excite them in order for you to perceive anything at all, this requires that reality is fully integrated for this to take place.

Once more, this is an irrelevance. Someone totally ignorant of Physics can still utter true or false sentences, and about things that do not exist.

Your misconceptions come from your lack of background in physics and understanding the nature of space and time.

Once more, you have absolutely no idea what my background is, but even if you were right, space and time have nothing to do with this, and for the reasons I mentioned above.

Mo212

15th October 2009, 01:48

Mo212:

Once more, you have absolutely no idea what my background is, but even if you were right, space and time have nothing to do with this, and for the reasons I mentioned above.

You are absolutely totally incorrect, space and time have everything to do with this since the world is a physical place, process of gaining knowledge (i.e. truth about the environment) is absolutely critical to understanding anything else.

Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter. ... Physical objects are not in space, but these objects are spatially extended. In this way the concept 'empty space' loses its meaning. ... Since the theory of general relativity implies the representation of physical reality by a continuous field, the concept of particles or material points cannot play a fundamental part, ... and can only appear as a limited region in space where the field strength / energy density are particularly high. (Albert Einstein, 1950)

It's obvious you are incapable of grasping even disccussing the matter. Your mind is simply not capable of digesting the complexity of the argument. You do not have the background to understand the argument.

Rosa Lichtenstein

15th October 2009, 02:06

Mo212:

You are absolutely totally incorrect, space and time have everything to do with this since the world is a physical place, process of gaining knowledge (i.e. truth about the environment) is absolutely critical to understanding anything else.

And yet you unwisely used indicative sentences to tell me this, confirming what I said you would have to do.

So, time and space are still irrelevant. In fact, the whole of modern physics could be completely wrong, and you would still be able to post indicative sentences here that are either true or false, and which could be about things that do not, and could not, ever exist.

Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter. ... Physical objects are not in space, but these objects are spatially extended. In this way the concept 'empty space' loses its meaning. ... Since the theory of general relativity implies the representation of physical reality by a continuous field, the concept of particles or material points cannot play a fundamental part, ... and can only appear as a limited region in space where the field strength / energy density are particularly high. (Albert Einstein, 1950)

And even Einstein had to use indicative sentences, too.

It's obvious you are incapable of grasping even discussing the matter. Your mind is simply not capable of digesting the complexity of the argument. You do not have the background to understand the argument.

Once more, you have absolutely no idea what my background is.

But, I note that in your desperation, you have to attack me, as opposed to addressing what I have to say.

And stop using indicative sentences -- they keep confirming I am right...

Mo212

15th October 2009, 02:42

Mo212:

But, I note that in your desperation, you have to attack me, as opposed to addressing what I have to say.

There was nothing in your post to address because you were not capable of understanding a word I said, you were addressing your incapability of understanding.

As I have said before you are not capable of understanding the argument, so there is nothing to address. Any more words on my part would be meaningless because it's quite obvious you're not interested in the truth of the matter, but rather your pride to protect your image of your intellectuality. I would be more then happy to discuss this with you at length but not on the forum since you seem overly involved in defending your image, and the argument is just too involved without speaking with you directly as I have realized you require extra help that cannot be done on a forum where you are so invested in your false accusations and self image.

Rosa Lichtenstein

15th October 2009, 05:13

Mo212:

There was nothing in your post to address because you were not capable of understanding a word I said, you were addressing your incapability of understanding.

In fact, since you can't explain yourself, it is apparent that even you do not understand your own theory.

As I have said before you are not capable of understanding the argument, so there is nothing to address. Any more words on my part would be meaningless because it's quite obvious you're not interested in the truth of the matter, but rather your pride to protect your image of your intellectuality. I would be more then happy to discuss this with you at length but not on the forum since you seem overly involved in defending your image, and the argument is just too involved without speaking with you directly as I have realized you require extra help that cannot be done on a forum where you are so invested in your false accusations and self image.

On the contrary, I am interested in the truth of your theory, but there seems to me to be no way that it can be, and for the reasons I have outlined in my earlier posts.

Mo212

15th October 2009, 07:12

Mo212:

So, if someone says "Cat" (unless this is in answer to a question, such as "What is that animal over there?"), you would not be able to tell if this was true or false. The other person would have to say something like "That cat is brown", before you could decide either way -- true or false. Same with an image.

You haven't understood... Cat is a self-defining truth. Cat is a label that points to information stored about an object you perceived which you DERIVED from the world, so when you say cat, the "meaning" of cat is in fact the information that was sent through your perceptual system and was stored as information.

Now, I gave you an example where several existing things featured in a false sentence, so truth and existence cannot be the same.

This statement proves you don't understand how truth is derived from reality, i.e. all statements are sub-statements of the universal statement (the universe),i.e. if If I divide the number 1 in half, I still have two half's of the same truth. In the real universe things are never truly seperate in the absolute sense.

You're not getting it into your skull that all information you use to compute truths and negative truths are derived and made of reality itself. Reality always inherits the properties of reality. This key concept is lost on you, so until you can get past this key concept (which is undeniably true, i.e. everything you think is a sub-part of the universe) you will not understand. This is the point that makes it clear you haven't understood anything I have said. The universe is A, you are sub A, and your thought is Sub-sub A.

Rosa Lichtenstein

15th October 2009, 12:16

Mo212:

You haven't understood... Cat is a self-defining truth. Cat is a label that points to information stored about an object you perceived which you DERIVED from the world, so when you say cat, the "meaning" of cat is in fact the information that was sent through your perceptual system and was stored as information.

No, a cat is an animal. You perhaps mean: "'Cat' is a self-defining truth". Well, not even this is the case, since "cat" is the name of the natural kind cat.

But, you will note that even you had to use an indicative sentence to tell me this falsehood.

So, despite what you [I]say, your own practice reveals that you too agree that truth, or falsehood, is a property of indicative sentences, not words, ideas, images, pictures or concepts -- or even cats.

And since information can only be passed between human language users, you are perhaps under the mistaken belief that a chain of human beings pass information along the optic nerve? I hope not.

Of course, you are using 'information' in a technical sense here, but then, in that case, this special sense cannot be connected with language, since information is expressed by language. If so, it cannot be used to explain our use of language without this special sense collapsing into the ordinary sense with all its anthropomorphic connotations noted in the previous paragraph.

This statement proves you don't understand how truth is derived from reality, i.e. all statements are sub-statements of the universal statement (the universe), i.e. if I divide the number 1 in half, I still have two half's of the same truth. In the real universe things are never truly separate in the absolute sense.

I'm sorry to have to tell you that the universe isn't a statement, not unless you think it is a human being, or the product of a human being (such as a book).

And, when you say this:

if If I divide the number 1 in half, I still have two half's of the same truth

What you probably mean is that it is true to say "One divided by two gives you two halves". Indeed, but you forgot to tell us what this is the same truth as.

Perhaps you mean that this is the same truth as "Two divided by four"?

Well, yes, but this isn't the same truth as "Five divided by two", or "Fifty divided by ten"; so we do not have a "same truth" here, but countless different truths, all expressed in indicative sentences, not individual words, once more.

If you think these are all the same truth, then you need to go back to school and re-learn simple arithmetic.

You're not getting it into your skull that all information you use to compute truths and negative truths are derived and made of reality itself. Reality always inherits the properties of reality. This key concept is lost on you, so until you can get past this key concept (which is undeniably true, i.e. everything you think is a sub-part of the universe) you will not understand. This is the point that makes it clear you haven't understood anything I have said. The universe is A, you are sub A, and your thought is Sub-sub A.

Well, what part of reality was this 'negative truth' derived from?

"I went shopping in Atlantis tomorrow and bought a perpetual motion machine with the square root of two".

This is the point that makes it clear you haven't understood anything I have said. The universe is A, you are sub A, and your thought is Sub-sub A

Well, you keep saying ridiculous things, So, as soon as you desist, I might standsome chance of understanding what you are trying to tell me --- once again in indicative sentences, not single words, pictures, images or concepts.

Mo212

15th October 2009, 22:46

Mo212:
Well, you keep saying ridiculous things, So, as soon as you desist, I might standsome chance of understanding what you are trying to tell me --- once again in indicative sentences, not single words, pictures, images or concepts.

You are incapable of understanding the argument because you've been taught incorrectly, you're not getting the underlying concept that nothing is ever disconnected from reality, everything is derived from that which existed previously to your stating it. Your returning to indicative sentences shows that you do not understand that sentences are merely reshaped pieces of reality (because in order to think a thought or say a sentence, it first has to be constructed and made of pre-existing substance, i.e. reality), that reality that existed previously to your reshaping the pre-existing information into that sentence.

Just drop it you are not capable of understanding the argument on your own without additional help because the conceptual framework for understanding truth and falsehood that you are using to judge is flawed from the outset.

Rosa Lichtenstein

15th October 2009, 23:03

Mo212:

You are incapable of understanding the argument because you've been taught incorrectly, you're not getting the underlying concept that nothing is ever disconnected from reality, everything is derived from that which existed previously to your stating it.

Well, and once again, my failure to grasp what you are saying is because what you are trying to say is incoherent.

And, it has nothing to do with what I have been 'taught' -- or, at least, no more than it has to do with what you have been 'taught'.

And not everything I have said has been "derived from that which existed previously to" my stating it, since I have given you several examples of indicative sentences that related to things that not only have never existed, they never could.

You keep ignoring this.

Your returning to indicative sentences shows that you do not understand that sentences are merely reshaped pieces of reality (because in order to think a thought or say a sentence, it first has to be constructed and made of pre-existing substance, i.e. reality), that reality that existed previously to your reshaping the pre-existing information into that sentence.

Whatever indicative sentences are or are not, and whatever they are made out of, you cannot communicate with me except by using them. Your continual use of them confirms that you too accept this.

Once more, that is why you do not even attempt to communicate with me by the use of single words, images or pictures.

This alone shows your theory is misguided.

Just drop it

No I won't.

you are not capable of understanding the argument on your own without additional help because the conceptual framework for understanding truth and falsehood that you are using to judge is flawed from the outset.

Seems to me that you are incapable of explaining your theory to me, and that is because it makes no sense at all.

So, you need to resist the temptation to blame me for your failings.

Mo212

16th October 2009, 02:15

Mo212:

Well, and once again, my failure to grasp what you are saying is because what you are trying to say is incoherent.

I'm saying you are not educated enough to discuss this because you are not wide read enough nor do not have enough background in the sciences, therefore what I seem will seem incoherent to you because you lack the concepts of how reality functions.

And, it has nothing to do with what I have been 'taught' -- or, at least, no more than it has to do with what you have been 'taught'.

Yes in fact it does concepts are the lenses by which people see and interpet the world, the only reason you are able to determine the meaning of any word is because your mind when you were small successfully mapped the concepts of what you were seeing to what you were hearing.

I'll put it another way:

Creationists are blinded by their concepts because they interpret reality in terms of the concepts they derived from the bible.

You are blinded because you do not have the proper concepts to take part in the discussion. Therefore whatever you are arguing not against me but against the emptyness of your misunderstanding.

And not everything I have said has been "derived from that which existed previously to" my stating it,

You keep ignoring this.

You're misrepresneting my argument. And I'm through with your misrepresenting it because you are purposely misinterpreting me. I'm saying that your very thoughts are made of reality**. Do you deny this yes or no?

You're confused about the definition of existence in how I'm using it, when you say "your statement didn't exist prior to you stating it", you're missing the point that in order for you to make that statement, EVERY CONCEPT THAT YOU HAVE IS DERIVED FROM REALITY WHICH PRE EXISTED YOU, i.e. all concepts are DERIVED From reality and reality PRECEDES your receiving information-conceptualization from the environment that is transmitting it to you.

To put it another way: If someone misconceives a concept from reality (i.e. the world is square) we can go back and LOOK at the earth and re-receive the concept from reality (the earth is round), the concept PRECEDES your knowing of it, so yes all concepts exist in reality before your stating them, all you do is merely re-arrange pre-existing states of matter and energy, but it's still the same old matter and energy. You come to awareness of things that were in fact the case. This appears as if "this never existed before" but actually what is really happening is that you are COMING TO AWARENESS OF IT. Big difference. All of this can only be understood if you understand the mechanics of perception which you clearly do not.

You're confused about definitions, and you are misrepresenting my argument. I'm saying because all concepts and statements are derived from reality, and because you have to be able to DETECT (receive) THAT THEY ARE THERE TO BEGIN WITH, that physical structure and truth are equivalent, else you could not know (detect) or discern anything.

So yes you do not have the conceptual framework to interpet anything I have said because you are simply NOT educated enough to take part in the discussion and you are entirely misrepresenting the argument by your confusion.

mel

16th October 2009, 03:03

I'm saying you are not educated enough to discuss this because you are not wide read enough nor do not have enough background in the sciences, therefore what I seem will seem incoherent to you because you lack the concepts of how reality functions.

Yes in fact it does concepts are the lenses by which people see and interpet the world, the only reason you are able to determine the meaning of any word is because your mind when you were small successfully mapped the concepts of what you were seeing to what you were hearing.

I'll put it another way:

Creationists are blinded by their concepts because they interpret reality in terms of the concepts they derived from the bible.

You are blinded because you do not have the proper concepts to take part in the discussion. Therefore whatever you are arguing not against me but against the emptyness of your misunderstanding.

You're misrepresneting my argument. And I'm through with your misrepresenting it because you are purposely misinterpreting me. I'm saying that your very thoughts are made of reality**. Do you deny this yes or no?

You're confused about the definition of existence in how I'm using it, when you say "your statement didn't exist prior to you stating it", you're missing the point that in order for you to make that statement, EVERY CONCEPT THAT YOU HAVE IS DERIVED FROM REALITY WHICH PRE EXISTED YOU, i.e. all concepts are DERIVED From reality and reality PRECEDES your receiving information-conceptualization from the environment that is transmitting it to you.

To put it another way: If someone misconceives a concept from reality (i.e. the world is square) we can go back and LOOK at the earth and re-receive the concept from reality (the earth is round), the concept PRECEDES your knowing of it, so yes all concepts exist in reality before your stating them, all you do is merely re-arrange pre-existing states of matter and energy, but it's still the same old matter and energy. You come to awareness of things that were in fact the case. This appears as if "this never existed before" but actually what is really happening is that you are COMING TO AWARENESS OF IT. Big difference. All of this can only be understood if you understand the mechanics of perception which you clearly do not.

You're confused about definitions, and you are misrepresenting my argument. I'm saying because all concepts and statements are derived from reality, and because you have to be able to DETECT (receive) THAT THEY ARE THERE TO BEGIN WITH, that physical structure and truth are equivalent, else you could not know (detect) or discern anything.

So yes you do not have the conceptual framework to interpet anything I have said because you are simply NOT educated enough to take part in the discussion and you are entirely misrepresenting the argument by your confusion.

Your point that physical structure and truth are equivalent does not follow from the rest of your argument. I may grant you that the existence of something necessarily precedes your conceputal understanding of it. I'd even perhaps grant that truth is gauged based detecting what actually exists against a truth claim. That being said, I think what Rosa has been getting at (and please, Rosa, correct me if I'm misunderstanding) is that "truth" is not identical with physical structure, but merely coincides with it. In order to evaluate the truth of a claim, you must compare the claim against that physical structure, but the truth is not identical with the physical structure itself. This is obviously greatly simplified, but I think it makes sense to say that physical structure and truth are distinct, but interrelated. The truth of a claim relies on detection and understanding of the physical structure, but is not identical with it.

On another note, I understand your frustration at feeling that you are misunderstood or misrepresented, but you've been responding with a level of hostility and aggression here that far outweighs what the situation calls for. Please try to keep your tone civil, the debate will be better off for it.

Mo212

16th October 2009, 06:38

Your point that physical structure and truth are equivalent does not follow from the rest of your argument.

Yes it does because the possibilities are already inherent in reality before you realized them, i.e. a microprocessor exists as stored potential in reality before we actualize it, i.e. other species as intelligent as us on an earth like planet like ours could make processors. because those the information itself is a part of reality just awaiting to be actualized.

You too have also misrepresented the argument, this is exactly why I accused her of not having the scientific background to discuss the argument. When we say something is true we are saying it exists at the same time. We are saying existent-structure is there.

You can trivially demonstrate it to yourself the next time you are in your car driving down the highway, you have to know that the cars you are passing exist (truly existing) to determine it's position (the truth about it's spatial relationship to you), therefore this is why existent structure is truth, the detectability problem, the problem is when you say structure is NOT a form of atruth, then you deny reality completely i.e. that car is really not there (i.e. the contradiction of detecting something that is not there). So you are caught in contradiction : To know a thing you must first be able of knowing that the structure from which you are getting the information from is there, but that information is also structure itself (i.e. photons hitting your rods and cones).

You sound smart enough to understand the implication of this and I don't mean that as a jab but you have to think through the detection problem clearly in order to grasp what I'm saying and this is her problem.

To quote david bohm (physicist)

The notion that all these fragments is separately existent is evidently an illusion, and this illusion cannot do other than lead to endless conflict and confusion. Indeed, the attempt to live according to the notion that the fragments are really separate is, in essence, what has led to the growing series of extremely urgent crises that is confronting us today. Thus, as is now well known, this way of life has brought about pollution, destruction of the balance of nature, over-population, world-wide economic and political disorder and the creation of an overall environment that is neither physically nor mentally healthy for most of the people who live in it. Individually there has developed a widespread feeling of helplessness and despair, in the face of what seems to be an overwhelming mass of disparate social forces, going beyond the control and even the comprehension of the human beings who are caught up in it. (David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, 1980

Rosa Lichtenstein

16th October 2009, 07:20

Mo212:

I'm saying you are not educated enough to discuss this because you are not wide read enough nor do not have enough background in the sciences, therefore what I seem will seem incoherent to you because you lack the concepts of how reality functions.

Once more, you have no idea what my education has or hasn't been. Nor have we any idea what yours has or hasn't been.

The real problem is that your theory makes no sense at all, and that is why you are having problems not only explaining it, but answering my objections.

Yes in fact it does concepts are the lenses by which people see and interpret the world, the only reason you are able to determine the meaning of any word is because your mind when you were small successfully mapped the concepts of what you were seeing to what you were hearing.

This is a Kantian metaphor, and is no more valid for all that.

Concepts, of course, aren't lenses. However, we use concept expressions in indicative sentences to express truths or falsehoods about the world. We do not use individual concepts, and neither do you.

Your hypothesis about what did or did not happen in my 'mind' has nothing to do with what the words we use mean; that is set by social practice, not individual apprehension.

If the meaning of words was set by what my 'mind' did or did not do, you would not be able to communicate with me, since we'd both understand words differently.

The fact that you have tried to communicate with me using a standard vocabulary suggests you already (implicitly) know this, even if you disagree with me.

Creationists are blinded by their concepts because they interpret reality in terms of the concepts they derived from the bible.

You are blinded because you do not have the proper concepts to take part in the discussion. Therefore whatever you are arguing not against me but against the emptiness of your misunderstanding.

And you are 'blinded' by your scientistic approach to this topic.

We can both point fingers.

Once more, you need to focus on your own obvious shortcomings, not my alleged 'blindness'.

You're misrepresenting my argument. And I'm through with your misrepresenting it because you are purposely misinterpreting me.

Then you need to be clearer about what you are saying. Your use of language is, to put it mildly, quite bizarre in places.

I'm saying that your very thoughts are made of reality**. Do you deny this yes or no

What my thoughts are or are not 'made of' is irrelevant to their content, which, in this discussion largely centres around the content of indicative sentences.

And this is true of what you have posted, too.

This indicates that, as far as what you do is concerned, even you reject your theory. You have not once tried to communicate with me using single words, images, pictures, concepts...

This is quite apart from the fact that your question makes no sense, and so it is impossible to answer.

You're confused about the definition of existence in how I'm using it, when you say "your statement didn't exist prior to you stating it", you're missing the point that in order for you to make that statement, EVERY CONCEPT THAT YOU HAVE IS DERIVED FROM REALITY WHICH PRE EXISTED YOU, i.e. all concepts are DERIVED From reality and reality PRECEDES your receiving information-conceptualization from the environment that is transmitting it to you.

Where did I say this?

"your statement didn't exist prior to you stating it",

What I did in fact say was this:

And not everything I have said has been "derived from that which existed previously to" my stating it,

You keep ignoring this.

So, now we know why you keep ignoring it; you can't read!

EVERY CONCEPT THAT YOU HAVE IS DERIVED FROM REALITY WHICH PRE EXISTED YOU, i.e. all concepts are DERIVED From reality and reality PRECEDES your receiving information-conceptualization from the environment that is transmitting it to you.

This seems to be a rather florid way of saying: the world existed before I was born. Yes, so what?

But, in fact you said this earlier:

You are incapable of understanding the argument because you've been taught incorrectly, you're not getting the underlying concept that nothing is ever disconnected from reality, everything is derived from that which existed previously to your stating it.

Bold added.

And I pointed out that this cannot be the case, since I gave you an example that cannot have been so 'derived'.

Unless you think that Atlantis existed, as well as perpetual motion machines.

You now reiterate this:

i.e. all concepts are DERIVED From reality and reality PRECEDES your receiving information-conceptualization from the environment that is transmitting it to you.

From which part of reality were these 'derived'?

Satan, the end of the rainbow, Nirvana, Big Foot, The Planet Vulcan (not the one on Star Trek), the Fifth Element (Quintessence), Polywater, the music of the spheres, singularities, mermaids....

To put it another way: If someone misconceives a concept from reality (i.e. the world is square) we can go back and LOOK at the earth and re-receive the concept from reality (the earth is round), the concept PRECEDES your knowing of it, so yes all concepts exist in reality before your stating them, all you do is merely re-arrange pre-existing states of matter and energy, but it's still the same old matter and energy. You come to awareness of things that were in fact the case. This appears as if "this never existed before" but actually what is really happening is that you are COMING TO AWARENESS OF IT. Big difference. All of this can only be understood if you understand the mechanics of perception which you clearly do not.

And how do you know this is true in every single case for every single person in all of human history? Are you some sort of deity?

You're confused about definitions, and you are misrepresenting my argument. I'm saying because all concepts and statements are derived from reality, and because you have to be able to DETECT (receive) THAT THEY ARE THERE TO BEGIN WITH, that physical structure and truth are equivalent, else you could not know (detect) or discern anything.

Once more, you keep blaming me for the holes in your theory. You'd be better occupied trying to fill them rather than pointing your fingers at me.

all concepts and statements are derived from reality,

Falsehoods cannot be 'derived' from reality. If they had been, they'd not be false, but true!

And, according to you, concepts shape our view of reality, so they cannot be derived from it, they shape it.

So yes you do not have the conceptual framework to interpret anything I have said because you are simply NOT educated enough to take part in the discussion and you are entirely misrepresenting the argument by your confusion.

Once more you blame me for the fact that your theory makes no sense.

Moreover, you keep speculating about my education from a position of total ignorance. If you have hard evidence about my education, post it.

What you in fact mean by my not understanding your theory is that I disagree with it. You think that your theory is so wonderful that to understand it is ipso facto to agree with it. You either think you are a special sort of genius (who alone knows deep secrets about reality not available to those who are not as well educated as you -- but we do not know how well or badly educated you are; your use of English suggests it was not as good as you seem to think it was) or that the rest of us are dolts who don't bow down to your obvious brilliance.

But, it is quite plain from your own confused use of language, that not even you understand it.

If you did, you'd be able to explain it in clear terms.

So far, you have failed to do so.

In that case, perhaps you aren't quite as wonderful as you seem to think...

Hit The North

16th October 2009, 15:24

Yes it does because the possibilities are already inherent in reality before you realized them, i.e. a microprocessor exists as stored potential in reality before we actualize it, i.e. other species as intelligent as us on an earth like planet like ours could make processors. because those the information itself is a part of reality just awaiting to be actualized.

That's interesting and this may seem like a stupid question but where was the micro-processor 'stored' before it was actualised?

When we say something is true we are saying it exists at the same time. We are saying existent-structure is there.
I think Rosa has been trying to expose this error in your thinking, but when we say something exists, we say "it exists", we don't say "it is true". The statement, "the cat exists" may be true, but that doesn't mean the cat itself is true. Truth is a concept by which we measure the accuracy of a statement about the world, not the world itself.

It may be the case that Rosa (and the rest of us) need to learn more science, but may I suggest that you need to use your language more precisely?

Meanwhile, I can't see what the quote by Bohm has to do with your argument at all.

Rosa Lichtenstein

16th October 2009, 22:53

BTB:

I think Rosa has been trying to expose this error in your thinking, but when we say something exists, we say "it exists", we don't say "it is true". The statement, "the cat exists" may be true, but that doesn't mean the cat itself is true. Truth is a concept by which we measure the accuracy of a statement about the world, not the world itself.

You are right here, but I wonder if you know that Mo212 is actually propounding a garbled version of traditional idealist theories of truth, particularly that put about by Hegel. And there are plenty enough dialecticians (including Lenin and Engels!) who agree with Hegel here, not noticing the idealist implcations of this approach to truth.

And the quote from Bohm is in fact Bohm's way of interpreting the Hegelian (and quintessentially idealist) dictum that 'truth is the whole', which is why Mo212 posted it.

Mo212

17th October 2009, 00:47

That's interesting and this may seem like a stupid question but where was the micro-processor 'stored' before it was actualised?

Remember what a micro processor really is : Just a re-arrangement of matter and energy, i.e. an arrangement of particles, all possible cnofiguration space always exists, think of it like this, the empty room in your house, that emptyness arrangement space *pre-exists* for you to put stuff in it, so making a microprocessor would be equivalent of you just repositioning particles in your room. i.e. you haven't "created" something "new" you've just re-arranged particles in space and time, do you understand? You've just re-arranged what already existed, you haven't "Created" anything "new", you're just re-arranging pre-existing stuff got it?

It may be the case that Rosa (and the rest of us) need to learn more science, but may I suggest that you need to use your language more precisely?

It doesn't matter because you have to think through the process visually to see the connections in the argument. People here are simply incapable of understanding the argument because of their lack of scientific background though, so even if I did use language more precisely there is no gaurantee it would click because you don't have an understanding of what you need to in order to see the relationships and make the connections. (i.e. the coneptual lenses I was talking about)

In order for you to understand a thing you have to have the concepts linked in order to see how they are related. But even if I told you directly there is no gaurantee that you are able enough to put it all together, human beings do not have universal ability understand truth or one anothers thoughts. (just like an ant cannot understand a human)

Mo212

17th October 2009, 01:03

BTB:

You are right here, but I wonder if you know that Mo212 is actually propounding a garbled version of traditional idealist theories of truth, particularly that put about by Hegel. And there are plenty enough dialecticians (including Lenin and Engels!) who agree with Hegel here, not noticing the idealist implcations of this approach to truth.

And the quote from Bohm is in fact Bohm's way of interpreting the Hegelian (and quintessentially idealist) dictum that 'truth is the whole', which is why Mo212 posted it.

You are too ignorant to take part in the discussion, and you completely misrperesent the argument again. This sums it up completely

Falsehoods cannot be 'derived' from reality. If they had been, they'd not be false, but true

You claim 1) Falsehoods cannto be derived (Detected) from reality, this is your most blatant error you keep making.

The process of KNOWING anything (truth / negative truth (falsehood)) requires DETECTION (feedback), the 'deriving' I'm talking about. So Rosa if falsehoods are not detected from reality how can one know that the falsehoods exist? How can you think and KNOW (detect) them? That's right - you are caught in a myriad of contradiction now.

In order for you to know something is false you have to detect presence or absence, such as the CAR is NOT in front of me. (The car is absent)

My boyfriend lied to me (the presence of something in the statement was absent)

Falsehoods are truth statements (it is true that it is NEGATIVELY TRUE). As I've said before, falsehoods are NEGATIVE TRUTHS.

This is why you are so hopelessly lost, you cannot deal with the detection contradiction.

mel

17th October 2009, 02:34

You are too ignorant to take part in the discussion, and you completely misrperesent the argument again. This sums it up completely

You claim 1) Falsehoods cannto be derived (Detected) from reality, this is your most blatant error you keep making.

The process of KNOWING anything (truth / negative truth (falsehood)) requires DETECTION (feedback), the 'deriving' I'm talking about. So Rosa if falsehoods are not detected from reality how can one know that the falsehoods exist? How can you think and KNOW (detect) them? That's right - you are caught in a myriad of contradiction now.

In order for you to know something is false you have to detect presence or absence, such as the CAR is NOT in front of me. (The car is absent)

My boyfriend lied to me (the presence of something in the statement was absent)

Falsehoods are truth statements (it is true that it is NEGATIVELY TRUE). As I've said before, falsehoods are NEGATIVE TRUTHS.

This is why you are so hopelessly lost, you cannot deal with the detection contradiction.

If you are saying that the process of evaluating the truth of a statement and the process of detection are one and the same, I may grant you that.

Nobody argues with you that in order for some statement to be true that it must correspond to reality. We're arguing that "reality" is not identical to "truth", since truth is a concept which ultimately describes a correspondence between a statement and reality.

Rosa Lichtenstein

17th October 2009, 04:07

Mo212:

You are too ignorant to take part in the discussion, and you completely misrepresent the argument again. This sums it up completely

Once more you substitute abuse for argument; and in your desperate position, I think I might do the same.

You claim 1) Falsehoods cannot be derived (Detected) from reality, this is your most blatant error you keep making.

The process of KNOWING anything (truth / negative truth (falsehood)) requires DETECTION (feedback), the 'deriving' I'm talking about.

Well, I argued that if falsehoods could be 'derived from the world' they'd not be falsehoods, but truths. You ignored this fatal defect of your theory.

So Rosa if falsehoods are not detected from reality how can one know that the falsehoods exist?

Where did I say that a falsehood existed? You are the one who is fixated on this idea.

However, I suspect you mean "How do you know a false sentence exists?"

The same way as anyone else.

But what has this got to do with whether falsehoods exist? Answer: nothing, unless you think that the world is actually composed of true and false sentences.

If this is so, you would be confusing indicative sentences with what they express -- which is a bit like confusing a picture with what it pictures.

The following suggests that this is indeed what you believe:

How can you think and KNOW (detect) them? That's right - you are caught in a myriad of contradiction now

In order for you to know something is false you have to detect presence or absence, such as the CAR is NOT in front of me. (The car is absent)

But, by confusing false indicative sentences with what they express, you turn falsehoods into truths!

So, it's your theory that is full of confusion.

And your rather crude epistemology gives you away too (perhaps this is where your 'education lets you down' -- you seem to know very little philosophy and/or logic):

In order for you to know something is false you have to detect presence or absence, such as the CAR is NOT in front of me. (The car is absent)

Not so. The following are false, but to know this is for me (or for you) to 'detect' nothing at all:

"Alpha Centauri is smaller than Paris".

"Electrons are composed of four quarks"

"The American Civil War was fought in the tenth century between the Klingons and a tribe of Abominable Snowmen".

And your use of 'detect' suggests you think human beings have antennae, or are radio receivers of some sort.

But, you give the game away, for when you say this

the CAR is NOT in front of me (The car is absent)

You admit that what a false indicative sentence expresses does not in fact exist.

So, you have just torpedoed your own theory.

My boyfriend lied to me (the presence of something in the statement was absent)

Falsehoods are truth statements (it is true that it is NEGATIVELY TRUE). As I've said before, falsehoods are NEGATIVE TRUTHS.

And I replied to this non-escape route thus:

But you reply:

Actually they do because falsehoods exist, therefore falsehood is merely NEGATIVE TRUTH. Since in order for you to KNOW a falsehood, the falsehood as a thought must first be made out of something (exist), the statement has to exist first (i.e. as a form of truth).

I am aware that falsehood is the opposite of truth, but you specifically said that existence and truth go together; you said noting about existence and 'negative truth'.

This would be like someone saying something like this: "James started the strike", only to be told that Peter in fact started the strike, to which the first person replied "Ah, but I am still right since Peter is not James" (or as you might put it "Peter is NEGATIVE JAMES").

Now, if you want to argue that way, it is easy for me to respond thus:

You say that truth and existence go together, whereas I say that falsehood and existence go together. So, I am right, and you are wrong, since truth is just NEGATIVE FALSEHOOD.

In that way, we will get nowhere.

Which is indeed where you have ended up.

This is why you are so hopelessly lost, you cannot deal with the detection contradiction.

1) It wasn't a contradiction.

2) It was in fact a confusion on your part.

Mo212

17th October 2009, 06:43

If you are saying that the process of evaluating the truth of a statement and the process of detection are one and the same, I may grant you that.

Note that once you grant that, it follows that reality and truth are one in the same - i.e. otherwise you could never detect or have any information about the world, or reality at large or even think or drive your car.

We're arguing that "reality" is not identical to "truth",

Think about this little problem: If structure and reality are not equivalent to truth, then by definition when you drive your car everyday it follows that your life is dependent on information that is not really there (since you deny reality is truth). Since you claim structure and truth are not equivalent, but the objective outcome of you driving around those cars is that you are still alive (i.e. therein lies the contradiction).

There are two truth classes: Positive truths and negative truths(falsehoods) - i.e. the car is not there (it is positively true the car is negatively there). What we call falsehoods are actually negative truths BECAUSE they are truth statements about things that exist - i.e. It is POSITIVELY TRUE that X is IS NEGATIVELY TRUE.

Nobody argues with you that in order for some statement to be true that it must correspond to reality.

Your missing the point again in my argument, EVERY STATEMENT is a reference to something you DETECTED in the world, every statement you make is MADE of the world itself. . You also are finally getting around to acknowledging that the process of detecting truth and the process of evaluating it are the same. i.e. in order to evaluate truth, you must have prior truth by which to evaluate. You've misunderstood part of the argument. Every statement you make must be detected and conceptualized first against something else you previously detected, therefore any statement you derive from reality sits in a default state of truth (existing) so they are TRUE and UNMAPPED, i.e. a simple in idea in your head can't be false that it exists in your head. If you think of the idea of 1 in your head you can't say "that one is false" because by definition the fact that the 1 idea exists is by definition true, when people talk about truth and negative truth most people have no idea what they are really saying.

For instance it is false that the car is blue, what we're really saying is the car is absent the of the color blue. Or to put it anther way "The car is not blue, because we detected that the car was absent blue". But in order to know that the car isn't blue, that car must be there and its lack of blueness must also be there BEFORE you are aware of it So in order to detect that truth, it must first exist (therefore truth and existence have equivalence) why? Because otherwise you couldn't detect it. You're implying by your comments that truth and reality aren't the same but the PROBLEM then becomes you are detecting that car in front you. So now we must ask WHAT ARE YOU DETECTING? and how is it possible you (know truly) and rely on that (not reality) based information to not walk into it? And down the rabbit hole you go...

Note this is what you said "Your point that physical structure and truth are equivalent does not follow from the rest of your argument." When you deny reality and truth are equivalent you are also denying your own ability to detect, sense and navigate around objects in your daily life because they require constant (detection) and redetection of their positions (i.e. their existence!). Hopefully you start to get it now.

So whenever you do a comparison all you are doing is saying is that whatever it is you are detecting is either present or absent, fully there or empty space/not there.

Therein lies the contradiction in your thinking.

Mo212

17th October 2009, 06:45

Mo212:

1) It wasn't a contradiction.

Yes it was, I've ready said you are incapable of grasping, no amount of words on my part can cure your fallacious reasoning. So please do not reply again! You have proved at every step you cannot follow the argument. In every post you misrepresent the argument, by stating your own which is not my argument.

spiltteeth

17th October 2009, 07:44

Note that once you grant that, it follows that reality and truth are one in the same - i.e. otherwise you could never detect or have any information about the world, or reality at large or even think or drive your car.

Think about this little problem: If structure and reality are not equivalent to truth, then by definition when you drive your car everyday it follows that your life is dependent on information that is not really there (since you deny reality is truth). Since you claim structure and truth are not equivalent, but the objective outcome of you driving around those cars is that you are still alive (i.e. therein lies the contradiction).

Therefore there are truth two truth classes: Positive truths and negative truths(falsehoods). We call falsehoods are actually negative truths BECAUSE they are truth statements - i.e. It is POSITIVELY TRUE that X is IS NEGATIVELY TRUE.

Your missing the point again in my argument, EVERY STATEMENT is a reference to something you DETECTED in the world, every statement you make is MADE of the world itself. . You also are finally getting around to acknowledging that the process of detecting truth and the process of evalutating it are the same. i.e. in order to evaluate truth, you must have prior truth by which to evaluate. You've misunderstood part of the argument. Every statement you make must be detected and conceptualized first against something else you previously detected, therefore any statement you derive from reality sits in a default state of truth (existing) so they are TRUE and UNMAPPED, i.e. a simple in idea in your head can't be false that it exists in your head. If you think of the idea of 1 in your head you can't say "that one is false" because by definition the fact that the 1 idea exists is by definition true, when people talk about truth and negative truth most people have no idea what they are really saying.

For instance it is false that the car is blue, what we're really saying is the car is absent the of the color blue. Or to put it anther way "The car is not blue, because we detected that the car was absent blue". But in order to know that the car isn't blue, that car must be there and its lack of blueness must also be there BEFORE you are aware of it So in order to detect that truth, it must first exist (therefore truth and existence have equivalence) why? Because otherwise you couldn't detect it. You're implying by your comments that truth and reality aren't the same but the PROBLEM then becomes you are detecting that car in front you. So now we must ask WHAT ARE YOU DETECTING? and how is it possible you (know truly) and rely on that (not reality) based information to not walk into it? And down the rabbit hole you go...

When you deny reality and truth are equivalent you are also denying that anything your own ability to sense and navigate around objects in your daily life because they require constant (detection) and redetection of their positions (i.e. their existence!). Hopefully you start to get it now.

So whenever you do a comparison all you are doing is saying this exitent object I detected is either present or absent, fully there or emptyspace/not there.

Therein lies the contradiction in your thinking.

Hmmmmm. I see what yr gett'n at MO212.

But then you'd be compelled to believe in God.

The old : God is "that than which nothing greater can be conceived" so that if God existed only in the intellect, it would not be "that than which nothing greater can be conceived", since it can be thought to exist in reality, which is greater. It follows then that God must exist in reality, since existing in reality is greater than just existing in the mind, therefore God exists.

It's from Anslem :

1)That than which nothing greater can be thought can be thought.
2)If that than which nothing greater can be thought can be thought, it exists in reality.
Therefore,

3)That than which nothing greater can be thought exists in reality,

Once we have formed this idea of "that than which nothing greater can be thought", Anselm says, we can see that such a being has features that cannot belong to a possible but non-existent object — or, in other words, that (2) is true.
For example, a being that is capable of non-existence is less great than a being that exists necessarily. If "that than which nothing greater can be thought" does not exist, it is obviously capable of non-existence; and if it is capable of non-existence, then even if it were to exist, it would not be "that than which nothing greater can be thought" after all. So if "that than which nothing greater can be thought" can be thought — that is, if it is a possible being — it actually exists.

Rosa Lichtenstein

17th October 2009, 12:28

Mo212:

Yes it was, I've ready said you are incapable of grasping, no amount of words on my part can cure your fallacious reasoning.

Once more, you launch into a personal attack on me instead of dealing with the gaping holes in your own 'theory'.

And, if that was a contradiction, you will no doubt find it easy to explain why this is so.

[Ha -- some hope!]

You have proved at every step you cannot follow the argument. In every post you misrepresent the argument, by stating your own which is not my argument.

In fact, far from being an argument, yours was more a series of dogmatic a priori claims loosely tied together with abusive comments. This could only be called an 'argument' by someone with a weird sense of humour.

And, I can't have misrepresented your 'argument' since I quoted you at every point.

In fact, as we can now see from the inadvertent admissions you made (repeated below), you don't appear to understand your own 'argument'.

Screw Up #1:

But, you give the game away, for when you say this

the CAR is NOT in front of me (The car is absent)

You admit that what a false indicative sentence expresses does not in fact exist.

So, you have just torpedoed your own theory.

Screw Up #2:

You:

I think you should think on the implications of existence not being true

Bold added.

But, the implications of this are that this possibility refutes your theory, for even you are prepared to countenance the possibility of the existence of something not being true.

So, I think you should think about the implications of this admission of yours!

So, far from me being the dimwit here, this indicates that the following words of yours apply to that person who looks back at you when you glance in a mirror:

I've ready said you are incapable of grasping, no amount of words on my part can cure your fallacious reasoning.

You:

So please do not reply again!

No chance.

Mo212

17th October 2009, 23:16

Mo212:

Once more, you launch into a personal attack on me instead of dealing with the gaping holes in your own 'theory'.

And, if that was a contradiction, you will no doubt find it easy to explain why this is so.

I've already explained it multiple times, in order for you to MAKE ANY STATEMENT. It has to be MADE OUT OF SOMETHING, and where do you get that SOMETHING? This key point is completely lost on you. Where did you get the stuff to make the statement?

The statement must BE MADE OF THE STRUCTURE OF REALITY. Now... the STRUCTURE FROM WHICH YOU MADE THE STATEMENT ALREADY EXISTED. You took previously existing matter and energy and re-organized it, you did not create a "new" thing you merely re-arranged the bits of pre-existing stuff, those bits were there for you to make things out of.

You cannot follow the argument because you keep misrepresenting it and not understanding this key point.

Mo212

17th October 2009, 23:42

Hmmmmm. I see what yr gett'n at MO212.

But then you'd be compelled to believe in God.

No I wouldn't be compelled to believe in God, I'd only be compelled to believe that the structure from which the universe is made is a single entity.

You would be compelled to believe that god and reality are one and the same (pantheism) and monotheism would fall apart, since all beings would share in the nature of god, but this god is nothing like the anthropomorphized gods of our ancestors ("a living being"), since god itself would be the fundamental structure and substance of any possible universe, since the universe would be a subdivision of it's "gods" substance.

Therefore all universes would be merely fraction of a single entity.

mel

18th October 2009, 00:31

I've already explained it multiple times, in order for you to MAKE ANY STATEMENT. It has to be MADE OUT OF SOMETHING, and where do you get that SOMETHING? This key point is completely lost on you. Where did you get the stuff to make the statement?

The statement must BE MADE OF THE STRUCTURE OF REALITY. Now... the STRUCTURE FROM WHICH YOU MADE THE STATEMENT ALREADY EXISTED. You took previously existing matter and energy and re-organized it, you did not create a "new" thing you merely re-arranged the bits of pre-existing stuff, those bits were there for you to make things out of.

You cannot follow the argument because you keep misrepresenting it and not understanding this key point.

You seem to make the dubious assumption that a "statement" is made of matter. The way a sentence has structure and the way a molecule has structure are very different.

spiltteeth

18th October 2009, 01:55

No I wouldn't be compelled to believe in God, I'd only be compelled to believe that the structure from which the universe is made is a single entity.

You would be compelled to believe that god and reality are one and the same (pantheism) and monotheism would fall apart, since all beings would share in the nature of god, but this god is nothing like the anthropomorphized gods of our ancestors ("a living being"), since god itself would be the fundamental structure and substance of any possible universe, since the universe would be a subdivision of it's "gods" substance.

Therefore all universes would be merely fraction of a single entity.

None of that follows from what you say at all, if we apply what you say to Anslem's idea.

Mo212

18th October 2009, 02:06

You seem to make the dubious assumption that a "statement" is made of matter.

There is nothing dubious about it - you cant detect, know, think about or make statements with things that aren't physically there (the detection contradiction). You are keep misrepresenting the argument again by ignoring the detection paradox. Until you address the detection issue you are misrepresenting my argument again. Your claim is that statements are not made out of structure found in reality, therefore the paradox arises - how are you able to detect words, and are discern anything in your environment? i.e. detecting is a necessary part of knowing.

Rosa Lichtenstein

18th October 2009, 02:08

Mo212:

I've already explained it multiple times, in order for you to MAKE ANY STATEMENT. It has to be MADE OUT OF SOMETHING, and where do you get that SOMETHING? This key point is completely lost on you. Where did you get the stuff to make the statement?

The statement must BE MADE OF THE STRUCTURE OF REALITY. Now... the STRUCTURE FROM WHICH YOU MADE THE STATEMENT ALREADY EXISTED. You took previously existing matter and energy and re-organized it, you did not create a "new" thing you merely re-arranged the bits of pre-existing stuff, those bits were there for you to make things out of.

And, I have also responded to this, along these lines: whatsoever an indicative sentence is or isn't made of is irrelevant to its content. This can be seen from the fact that the content of the same sentence can be expressed by a written English sentence, a recorded Japanese utterance, communicated in Morse Code, or by Aldis Lamp, carved in stone in Urdu, knitted onto the front of a cardigan in Klingon, printed on a Tea Shit in picture code -- or even written in sand in Welsh. The content would be the same despite the widely differing media use to record it.

Moreover, the same materials can be used to write something completely different using the same words, but changing their order.

For example, this could be written in ink:

M1: Mo212 keeps diverting attention from the holes in his/her theory by continually making derogatory remarks about RL.

Compare that with this:

M2: RL keeps diverting attention from the holes in his/her theory by continually making derogatory remarks about Mo212.

The first is true and the second false, and this has nothing to do with what each one is made out of. And the same 'existents' are mentioned in each case. So it has nothing to do with existence, either.

And, the same words can be rearranged so that they make no sense at all:

M3: Mo212 posts at RevLeft.

Compare that with:

M4: RevLeft posts at Mo212.

Same material, but the first is true, while the second can neither be true nor false.

Unfortunately for you, our language is far more sophisticated than your simplistic 'theory' will allow.

However, you appear to want to go further, that is you seem to want argue from the fact that some of these signs are material to the conclusion that what they express must exist.

But that would imply that Big Tooth, the Tooth Fairy and the entire Greek Pantheon must exist.

This alone shows that your 'theory' is defective -- what little sense can be made of it, that is.

You cannot follow the argument because you keep misrepresenting it and not understanding this key point.

On the contrary, it seems that not even you understand your 'theory', so no wonder we stand no chance.

Mo212

18th October 2009, 02:10

None of that follows from what you say at all, if we apply what you say to Anslem's idea.

It does because ALL OF EXISTENCE is the idea of which none greater then can be thought. Because theconcept of ALL encompasses ALL. (All gods, all people, all times, all universes, all statements, etc, etc)

What is greater then ALL of existence? That is why I'm saying you can look at it from either perspective: The problem the monotheist has is that his god never shows himself directly, i.e. you can't distinguish between nature and god, then there are the issues of an omnipotent god using the slowest, most error prone method (ignorant men) and the most inefficient method (writing sacred books) to send his message.

When you compare the method our ancestors ancient gods used against modern technology, this poses a question to the modern man's mind... Why is my methods and knowledge of transmitting information and truth better then the gods of ancient men?

Therefore the gods of our ancestors are clearly mythological creatures and men must delude themselves to believe in a god so inefficient, callous (because he is inefficient) and powerless (because our technology is better then the ancient gods own methods).

Mo212

18th October 2009, 02:14

Mo212:

This alone shows that your 'theory' is defective -- what little sense can be made of it, that is.

On the contrary, it seems that not even you understand your 'theory', so no wonder we stand no chance.

I understand my theory just fine:

1) Every statement that is made must exist in some way in order for you to conceive it, detect it's existence, and therefore know it. Yes or no?

2) Every statement (information contained within the statement) is derived from reality, yes or no?

You need to answer yes or no so we can find the point at which you lost understanding. You keep misrepresenting the argument again and again because you are so lacking in a scientific background.

spiltteeth

18th October 2009, 02:28

Mo212;1572124]It does because ALL OF EXISTENCE is the idea of which none greater then can be thought. Because theconcept of ALL encompasses ALL. (All gods, all people, all times, all universes, all statements, etc, etc)

What is greater then ALL of existence?

The being that created all existence. It's all in the Anslem post.

Mo212

18th October 2009, 02:28

Mo212:

Moreover, the same materials can be used to write something completely different using the same words, but changing their order.

When you write something you are merely re-arranging the previous states of knowledge you learned that were already there. yes or no?

This is the fallacy you keep making.

Rosa Lichtenstein

18th October 2009, 02:34

Mo212:

I understand my theory just fine:

Well, your posts so far say different.

1) Every statement that is made must exist in some way in order for you to conceive it, detect it's existence, and therefore know it. Yes or no?

2) Every statement (information contained within the statement) is derived from reality, yes or no?

One is irrelevant, as I have shown (you need to demonstrate where my argument goes wrong instead of just ignoring it). and two is false, as I have also shown.

Here is part of it again:

Well, what part of reality was this 'negative truth' derived from?

"I went shopping in Atlantis tomorrow and bought a perpetual motion machine with the square root of two".

You:

You need to answer yes or no so we can find the point at which you lost understanding. You keep misrepresenting the argument again and again because you are so lacking in a scientific background.

In fact, it's now plain that it is your 'understanding' of your own defective 'theory' that seems to be the problem, since you cannot explain it in clear terms, or terms that make any sense at all.

But, I note once again your propensity to blame me for your own shortcomings.

'Genius' that you plainly think you are, you should have worked out by now that that strategy isn't working.

Mo212

18th October 2009, 02:34

The being that created all existence. It's all in the Anslem post.

No you have to tell me why it is that all of existence is not a better idea then god, because god by definition is incoherent. You are avioding my ciriticism. It isn't "all in the anslem post", that's garbage, I'm asking you why is all of existence is not exactly the same thing as god? More-over it's simpler then god (since god as a being would be complex) where as existence would be a single simple entity, from which all things (universes, people, etc) are sub-units of. And is much more parsimonious.

Mo212

18th October 2009, 02:36

[

Mo212:

One is irrelevant, as I have shown (you need to demonstrate where my argument goes wrong instead of just ignoring it). and two is false, as I have also shown.

Note that for th record rosa denies this statement (by claiming it is irrelevant): "Every statement that is made must exist in some way in order for you to conceive it, detect it's existence, and therefore know it."

This is clearly not irrelevant, because it leads to contradiction if you deny it.

Rosa Lichtenstein

18th October 2009, 02:37

Mo212:

When you write something you are merely re-arranging the previous states of knowledge you learned that were already there. yes or no?

What 'states of knowledge' are these? Are they in the USA somewhere?

From that remark you can take it that I deny there is such a thing as a 'state of knowledge', and I'd like to see your proof that there are any.

This is the fallacy you keep making.

Maybe so, maybe not, but whatever alleged fallacies I have or have not committed, they pall into insignificance next to yours.

spiltteeth

18th October 2009, 02:37

It does because ALL OF EXISTENCE is the idea of which none greater then can be thought. Because theconcept of ALL encompasses ALL. (All gods, all people, all times, all universes, all statements, etc, etc)

What is greater then ALL of existence? That is why I'm saying you can look at it from either perspective: The problem the monotheist has is that his god never shows himself directly, i.e. you can't distinguish between nature and god, then there are the issues of an omnipotent god using the slowest, most error prone method (ignorant men) and the most inefficient method (writing sacred books) to send his message.

When you compare the method our ancestors ancient gods used against modern technology, this poses a question to the modern man's mind... Why is my methods and knowledge of transmitting information and truth better then the gods of ancient men?

Therefore the gods of our ancestors are clearly mythological creatures and men must delude themselves to believe in a god so inefficient, callous (because he is inefficient) and powerless (because our technology is better then the ancient gods own methods).

Actually I believe he transmitted his knowledge directly built in to our noetic structure, which is the most efficient way. Probably why most people believe in God without evidence or arguments.
Plus it works out for the best, as Pascal says,
"God has given evidence sufficiently clear for those with an open heart, but sufficiently vague as not to compel those whose hearts are closed"

Rosa Lichtenstein

18th October 2009, 02:41

Mo212:

Where did you show this?

Here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1572121&postcount=58

As I said, you need to address my arguments (like I try to address everything you say), instead of just ignoring them.

This [is] complete bullshit and you know it.

Indeed I do, but it is nice to see you agree with me about the quality of your posts -- I was just too polite to say this about your 'theory'.

Mo212

18th October 2009, 02:43

Actually I believe he transmitted his knowledge directly built in to our noetic structure, which is the most efficient way. Probably why most people believe in God without evidence or arguments.
Plus it works out for the best, as Pascal says,
"God has given evidence sufficiently clear for those with an open heart, but sufficiently vague as not to compel those whose hearts are closed"

But this does not warrant believing in the bible or any sacred book, knowledge of god, is not knowledge of his personality or what he want s of you. And the world is filled with different gods wanting contradictory things.

So even if one claims to believe in god, one cannot say what god wants of other people do you agree?

spiltteeth

18th October 2009, 02:43

No you have to tell me why it is that all of existence is not a better idea then god, because god by definition is incoherent. You are avioding my ciriticism. It isn't "all in the anslem post", that's garbage, I'm asking you why is all of existence is not exactly the same thing as god? More-over it's simpler then god (since god as a being would be complex) where as existence would be a single simple entity, from which all things (universes, people, etc) are sub-units of. And is much more parsimonious.

Because the idea of a being greater than the universe is a greater idea.

It has nothing to do with 'better idea's" re-read the post.

It really is all in the Anslem post - first sentence:
God is "that than which nothing greater can be conceived"

And, actually, there is no reason why God would be more complex, but based on what YOU believe, the conclusion seems unavoidable.

Mo212

18th October 2009, 02:44

Mo212:

Here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1572121&postcount=58

You didn't show it that is your misrpresentation of my argument. this is why I'm need you to answer the answer the two points I made 1) specifically.

spiltteeth

18th October 2009, 02:45

But this does not warrant believing in the bible or any sacred book, knowledge of god, is not knowledge of his personality or what he want s of you. And the world is filled with different gods wanting contradictory things.

So even if one claims to believe in god, one cannot say what god wants of other people do you agree?

I really think this part belongs in the religious section, but your saying a being whom you cannot know is a greater being than one you can know and loves you etc?
This seems untenable.

Mo212

18th October 2009, 02:46

Because the idea of a being greater than the universe is a greater idea.

No because when I say all of existence I do not mean "the universe' I mean all of existence, so if god is greater then the universe then by definition god is ALL OF EXISTENCE and existence and god are equivalent (therefore everything would by definition have to be made of god) so we're still back to Nature = god.

Existence is more basic then the universe, do not confuse the two, since ALL OF EXISTENCE, would include all universes and all possible gods.

Rosa Lichtenstein

18th October 2009, 02:48

Mo212:

You didn't show it that is your misrpresentation of my argument. this is why I'm need you to answer the answer the two points I made 1) specifically.

Except, you are finding it impossible to say where and how I 'misrepresented' your 'argument'.

And, as I noted earlier, only someone with a twisted sense of humour can call what you have posted an 'argument' -- what you have in fact posted in its place is a series of a priori, dogmatic claims knitted together with abusive remarks about me.

Mo212

18th October 2009, 02:49

I really think this part belongs in the religious section, but your saying a being whom you cannot know is a greater being than one you can know and loves you etc?
This seems untenable.

Just because it seems psychologically untenable to you does not mean it's not the truth. Since we know the writings of our ancestors are filled with erroneous understandings of reality (witches, magic, demons, etc).

So I think the safest belief in god is deistic.

Check out this article here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unknown_God

In addition to the twelve main gods (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Olympian_twelve) and the innumerable lesser deities (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Greek_mythology), ancient Greeks (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Greece) worshiped a deity they called Agnostos Theos, that is: the Unknown god. In Athens (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Athens), there was a temple (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Temple) specifically dedicated to that god and very often Athenians would swear "in the name of the Unknown god" (Νή τόν Άγνωστον Ne ton Agnoston).[1] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#cite_note-0) Apollodorus (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Apollodorus), Philostratus (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Philostratus) and Pausanias (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Pausanias_(geographer)) wrote about the Unknown god as well.[2] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#cite_note-1) The Unknown god was not so much a specific deity, but a placeholder (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Placeholder), for whatever god or gods actually existed but whose name and nature were not revealed to the Athenians or the Hellenized (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Hellenized) world at large.

Mo212

18th October 2009, 02:51

Mo212:

Except, you are finding it impossible to say where and how I 'misrepresented' your 'argument'.

No I'm not finding it impossible to say how you misrepresented my argument, my point in asking you those questions is to get you to expose to me your own understanding of how you think your own thinking and senses function.

Because your argument starts from not understanding the mechanics of detecting and receiving information from the environment, all your fallacies revolve around you not understanding recursive feedback. This is why I asked you to answer those questions so we can find the gap in your misunderstanding. I'm using the socratic method to expose what it is you think you know and see if it leads to contradiction therefore I have to do the asking because I'm the one who understands what I'm saying and you are the one who is not understanding what I'm saying, so I'm forcing the issue by asking the questions by a process of elimination.

Therefore these questions are necessary to strip your own thoughts bare to me so I can find out what you are misunderstanding.

Now ...

Does every statement contain information that is detected from reality in some way in order for you to conceive it, detect it's existence, and therefore know it. Yes or no?

Is all information from which statements are made gotten from reality, yes or no?

spiltteeth

18th October 2009, 02:55

Just because it seems psychologically untenable to you does not mean it's not the truth. Since we know the writings of our ancestors are filled with erroneous understandings of reality (witches, magic, demons, etc).

So I think the safest belief in god is deistic.

Check out this article here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unknown_God

In addition to the twelve main gods (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Olympian_twelve) and the innumerable lesser deities (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Greek_mythology), ancient Greeks (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Greece) worshiped a deity they called Agnostos Theos, that is: the Unknown god. In Athens (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Athens), there was a temple (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Temple) specifically dedicated to that god and very often Athenians would swear "in the name of the Unknown god" (Νή τόν Άγνωστον Ne ton Agnoston).[1] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#cite_note-0) Apollodorus (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Apollodorus), Philostratus (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Philostratus) and Pausanias (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Pausanias_(geographer)) wrote about the Unknown god as well.[2] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#cite_note-1) The Unknown god was not so much a specific deity, but a placeholder (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Placeholder), for whatever god or gods actually existed but whose name and nature were not revealed to the Athenians or the Hellenized (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Hellenized) world at large.

Yea, I dig Mr. Unknown and I'm not arguing Christianity, but again a being that can be known is a greater being.
I'm just saying you gotta believe it if what you say is true. Do you?

Like the post says, a being that is greater than all existence, that transcends all existence is a greater being, since it creates all existence, and to create all existence it must necessarily not BE all existence, but transcend it.

And I meant logically untenable.

Rosa Lichtenstein

18th October 2009, 03:03

Mo212:

No I'm not finding it impossible to say how you misrepresented your argument, my point in asking you those questions is to get you to understand how your own thinking and senses function, because your argument starts from not the mechanics of detecting and receiving information from the environment, all your fallacies revolve around you not understanding recursive feedback. This is why I asked you to answer those questions so we can find the gap in your misunderstanding.

How my 'senses' and 'thinking function is irrelevant; what is relevant is the content of the indicative sentences we both post.

This is shown by the fact that you can follow me without knowing how my 'thinking' functions, and so can anyone else (who knows no science at all).

And we can't receive 'information' from the environment, since the latter is not an intelligent agent.

If, of course, you are using 'information' in a technical sense, then you can't use it in the way you seem to want to do here, that is, to argue that the 'environment' can deliver to me the content of an indicative sentence.

If, on the other hand, you are using it in another sense, then what is it?

all your fallacies revolve around you not understanding recursive feedback.

You tried this one on before, and I replied then that I have a mathematics degree and that I do not need lectures from you about recursive functions.

Anyway, they are irrelevant here too.

Or: you have yet to show how they are.

This is why I asked you to answer those questions so we can find the gap in your misunderstanding.

And, once again, your own failings are projected on to me.

No I'm not finding it impossible to say how you misrepresented your argument,

Yet again: you have failed to say how and were I have 'misrepresented' your 'argument' -- such as it is.

And: we are still waiting for your proof that there is such a thing as a 'state of knowledge'.

Mo212

18th October 2009, 03:12

You tried this one on before, and I replied then that I have a mathematics degree and that I do not need lectures from you about recursive functions.

I don't care what your degree is the point is the physical mechanics of detection. The transmission of information from the environment into your little head.

Yet again: you have failed to say how and were I have 'misrepresented' your 'argument' -- such as it is.

I did not fail you are simply incapable of understanding it, you do not possess the education to engage the argument. You also refuse to answer my questions which will reveal your contradictions so it's pointless.

And we can't receive 'information' from the environment, since the latter is not an intelligent agent.

Ok so you're not receieving information by way of photons, about where those cars, walls, and buildings are so you don't run into them, or get hit by a car? This statement proves your intellectual incompetence. Information being transmitted by the environment does not require it to be a human being.

It's becoming apparent you don't have any interest in understanding the argument and you are not equipped to deal with it.

Rosa Lichtenstein

18th October 2009, 12:34

Mo212:

I don't care what your degree is the point is the physical mechanics of detection. The transmission of information from the environment into your little head.

I am well ware you don't care about the facts of my, or anyone else's education, since you are the only person on the planet who has access to the deeper mysteries of the universe, now stored in your big head.

Ok so you're not receiving information by way of photons, about where those cars, walls, and buildings are so you don't run into them, or get hit by a car? This statement proves your intellectual incompetence. Information being transmitted by the environment does not require it to be a human being.

Again, you are plainly using 'information' here in a new, and as yet unexplained sense. But, what is it? You failed to say.

Except you use it as another excuse to pass abusive comments about me -- once more in order to deflect attention from the fact that, when it comes to philosophy, you are way out of your depth.

I did not fail you are simply incapable of understanding it, you do not possess the education to engage the argument. You also refuse to answer my questions which will reveal your contradictions so it's pointless.

Well, we have two claims here: 1) That I fail to 'understand' your 'path-breaking' non-theory, and 2) That I misrepresented it.

But, we already know that 1) can be put down to the fact that not even you understands your own 'theory', as I demonstrated above. And, as I have also shown, 2) you have failed to tell us when and where I have 'misrepresented' it.

In fact, it is you who ignores most of my arguments. I suspect you can't answer them, so that is why you pass them by without comment. But, these are standard philosophical arguments that have been used for years against more sophisticated, and far clearer versions of idealist theories like yours.

As I said, you are plainly way out of your depth when it comes to philosophy. You seem to think philosophy amounts to you delivering a priori 'truths' to the rest of us, as we sit at your feet, open mouthed and in awe at your brilliance, which theses we have to accept or we are accused of not being capable of understanding such cosmic verities, which you received on stone tablets at the top of a mountain somewhere.

Moreover, your sub-'theory' is so weird it can only be expressed by a bizarre use of language (wherein, for example, you confuse 'truth' with 'existence', and where you help yourself to a new sense of 'information' you either won't or cannot explain). And then you blame us for being bemused at your 'innovative reasoning'. Your only way to defend your 'theory' is to fault us for not 'understanding' it.

And we are still waiting for your proof that there are such things as 'states of knowledge'.

Or do you expect us to swallow this one just on your say so?

Mo212

19th October 2009, 01:51

...

Rosa I already said you are INCAPABLE of understanding it because you do NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO UNDERSTAND IT because you do not have the education to so please step down. If you are seriously interested you will have to agree to answer my questions so I can go through your fallacious understanding and expose it.

You suffer from the enlightenment fallacy - that reasoning is universal.

PYmi0DLzBdQ

Rosa Lichtenstein

19th October 2009, 07:27

Mo212 (still blaming me for his/her own failings):

Rosa I already said you are INCAPABLE of understanding it because you do NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO UNDERSTAND IT because you do not have the education to so please step down. If you are seriously interested you will have to agree to answer my questions so I can go through your fallacious understanding and expose it.

Yes and I have responded several times that you seem incapable of understanding your own 'theory'.

Here it is one of them again:

Again, you are plainly using 'information' here in a new, and as yet unexplained sense. But, what is it? You failed to say.

Except you use it as another excuse to pass abusive comments about me -- once more in order to deflect attention from the fact that, when it comes to philosophy, you are way out of your depth.

I did not fail you are simply incapable of understanding it, you do not possess the education to engage the argument. You also refuse to answer my questions which will reveal your contradictions so it's pointless.

Well, we have two claims here: 1) That I fail to 'understand' your 'path-breaking' non-theory, and 2) That I misrepresented it.

But, we already know that 1) can be put down to the fact that not even you understands your own 'theory', as I demonstrated above. And, as I have also shown, 2) you have failed to tell us when and where I have 'misrepresented' it.

In fact, it is you who ignores most of my arguments. I suspect you can't answer them, so that is why you pass them by without comment. But, these are standard philosophical arguments that have been used for years against more sophisticated, and far clearer versions of idealist theories like yours.

As I said, you are plainly way out of your depth when it comes to philosophy. You seem to think philosophy amounts to you delivering a priori 'truths' to the rest of us, as we sit at your feet, open mouthed and in awe at your brilliance, which theses we have to accept or we are accused of not being capable of understanding such cosmic verities, which you received on stone tablets at the top of a mountain somewhere.

And if you are serious about discussing this you will respond to my criticisms of your 'theory'.

Once more, if you have hard evidence both about the alleged deficiencies in my education, and your own superior education, let's see it. Otherwise, you need to stop making these irrelevant and baseless allegations.

You have already been told that this ploy of yours (to deflect attention from the fact that you can't explain your 'theory') is not working, and it won't work. So you can forget about this too:

so please step down

You have already been told that there is less chance of this happening than you winning a Noble Prize.

You suffer from the enlightenment fallacy - that reasoning is universal.

Maybe so, maybe not -- but one thing is clear, you have delusions about your own ability to reveal to us the secrets of the universe. The rest of us just don't see it, and with each of your posts the case for your defence gets weaker.

And, we are still waiting for your proof that there is such a thing as a 'state of knowledge'.

Why so shy? Someone as brilliant and all-knowing as you should find this one a doddle.

Mo212

19th October 2009, 08:22

Mo212 (still blaming me for his/her own failings):

Yes and I have responded several times that you seem incapable of understanding your own 'theory'.

I understand it just fine.

Once more, if you have hard evidence both about the alleged deficiencies in my education, and your own superior education, let's see it. Otherwise, you need to stop making these irrelevant and baseless allegations.

There is nothing baseless about it, hence I asked - is information and structure equivalent? yes or no?

You have already been told that this ploy of yours (to deflect attention from the fact that you can't explain your 'theory') is not working, and it won't work.

There is no ploy only your lack of a basic physics education.

And, we are still waiting for your proof that there is such a thing as a 'state of knowledge'.

Imagine a highway of cars going back and forth in your mind, now freeze time while you stand in the middle of a highway. Now ask yourself is the existent environmental structure equivalent to information?

Now where do you get information about the locations and existence (knowledge/information) of those structures?

Why so shy? Someone as brilliant and all-knowing as you should find this one a doddle.

I'm not shy, I need you to focus on answering my questions.

Rosa Lichtenstein

19th October 2009, 11:22

Mo212 (still in denial):

I understand it just fine.

Well, we already know you are a legend in your own mind, when your posts suggest otherwise, and that you do not in fact understand your own 'theory', otherwise you'd be able to explain it to us mere mortals.

No luck there so far.

There is nothing baseless about it, hence I asked - is information and structure equivalent? yes or no?

I honestly don't think you can read, for my 'baseless' accusation was this:

Once more, if you have hard evidence both about the alleged deficiencies in my education, and your own superior education, let's see it. Otherwise, you need to stop making these irrelevant and baseless allegations.

Bold added.

As you can see (Ha! Some hope!) I was alleging that you had no hard evidence about my education. Instead, you reply about information and 'structure'!

If anyone's education is deficient, it seems it's yours. You appear to have great difficulty reading plain English.

There is no ploy only your lack of a basic physics education.

And yet again you advance allegations about my supposed lack of education in Physics when you have no knowledge at all about me or my past.

So, the only conclusion possible is that you are doing this with the sole purpose of deflecting attention from the fact that you can't explain yourself or your 'theory'.

And, here is your 'proof' that there is such a thing as a 'state of knowledge':

Imagine a highway of cars going back and forth in your mind, now freeze time while you stand in the middle of a highway. Now ask yourself is the existent environmental structure equivalent to information?

1) Instead of giving us hard science, you offer us a 'thought experiment'! Some physicist you are. And you have the cheek to point fingers at me!

2) Once more you help yourself to the word 'information', which you are clearly using in an as yet unexplained sense.

So, we are still waiting for that proof.

Now where do you get information about the locations and existence (knowledge/information) of those structures?

What structures?

And even if there were any, human beings possessed knowledge long before these 'structures' (whatever they are) were themselves dreamt up. So our alleged knowledge of these 'structures' has nothing to do with a 'state of knowledge' -- which you have yet to show exists.

And what has a 'state of knowledge' got to do with these mythical 'structures' anyway, both of which you have failed to show exist?

I'm not shy, I need you to focus on answering my questions.

1) I see, it's Ok for you to ignore what I say, but I have to answer your questions. That seems fair...

2) Most of your questions either make no sense, or they assume things yet to be demonstrated. For example, your question about these 'structures' which you have just plucked out of thin air.

Calmwinds

20th October 2009, 05:06

will rewrite later after reviewing materials, this serves as a good excuse to read materials from a field i was interested in anyways

Mo212

20th October 2009, 05:47

I am highly unimpressed by the video.

It doesn't matter if you are unimpressed (read: You don't believe the points he made). The cognitive science backs it up, I'd advise you to go read some journals on the nature of reasoning. Also investigate optical illusions (i.e. proof that much reasoning is unconscious, that is beneath your awareness).

When you are perceiving you are interpreting and reasoning (i.e. processing information).

Calmwinds

20th October 2009, 05:51

Please answer or clarify the other things.

Mo212

20th October 2009, 05:53

Mo212 (still in denial):

1) Instead of giving us hard science, you offer us a 'thought experiment'! Some physicist you are. And you have the cheek to point fingers at me!

Sigh... I'm asking you an empirical question. Can you detect your environment, yes or no? How did you detect it? (you recieved information from it). It doesn't require any kind of sophisticated argument.

2) Once more you help yourself to the word 'information', which you are clearly using in an as yet unexplained sense.

No I have explained it, I said information is structure and structureand existence are equivalent (else you could not detect and know about them - i.e. the navigation paradox).

When you say I haven't "Explained" it, you're chickening out, I'm asking you to THINK THROUGH the implications of you NOT accepting that the worlds structure and information are NOT EQUIVALENT and the kinds of REAL WORLD EMPIRCAL PARADOXES that arise from that in order for you to grasp the argument.

What structures?

The ones required for you to detect and perform functions like oh, navigation (something damn fucking empircally demonstrable)

You are showing how bloody incapable you are of following the argument. In order to DETECT (know) something in your environment you must RECEIVE information from the environment, yes or no? This is an empircal question.

I define information as structure. So I have given my definition already and you say I haven't given one which is nonsense. In order for you to know a thing, it has to exist as a structure first in order for you to detect it.

We can empirically demonstrate this with a simple navigation experiment by having you open or close your eyes and trying to navigate around objects.

You're once again are purposely attacking a strawman.

Mo212

20th October 2009, 06:06

Please answer or clarify the other things.

I'd rather have you read some works first because it'd be better if it came from published scientists, you've already shown your lack of background in the cognitive sciences by disagreeing with one who is in the field.

http://www.amazon.com/Where-Mathematics-Comes-Embodied-Brings/dp/0465037712/

More evidence of unconscious reasoning - Note how the representation of mathematics for daniel are active geometric structures (i.e. the world's natural geometry). Many people who do math have to focus on it and work through it more consciously, but daniel does not.

AbASOcqc1Ss

You can see more the rest of the 5 part documentary below, or just click on the video again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbASOcqc1Ss

Calmwinds

20th October 2009, 06:17

I will take what you say as true(cognitive sciences) and read/buy the relevant journals and materials you have linked to. Also, when I say unimpressed I meant that I already believed much of what he has said (considering previous literary exposure)

Though do you posit ethical truths as 'truths', or even though these are neurologically based and they exist(you clarify this with the picture shark example) they are not true? (Not an attempt at refutation)

I think my main confusion can be reduced to essentially what Bob said earlier. Reproduced below

I think Rosa has been trying to expose this error in your thinking, but when we say something exists, we say "it exists", we don't say "it is true". The statement, "the cat exists" may be true, but that doesn't mean the cat itself is true. Truth is a concept by which we measure the accuracy of a statement about the world, not the world itself.
I am in possession of the book you have linked to. Do you wholly adopt their positions? It seems your own position is in somewhat of disagreement with the book, the entire "reality->us->reality"

Also I don't even think I am very opposed to what you say. My empiricism is essentially the same, and If I may be so bold, I think pretty much everyone here is engaged in a language game not an actual disagreement.

I do not think though that unconscious reasoning is very opposed to the enlightenment idea of reasoning. Perhaps I hold a very weird view of it[Enlightenment reasoning] but it indeed seems very compatible with how I understand it.

Care to link to any Journals you like or some papers? I found the argument Nunez and Lakoff's book sort of bogged down by blunders.

Mo212

20th October 2009, 07:30

I think my main confusion can be reduced to essentially what Bob said earlier. Reproduced below

Quote:
I think Rosa has been trying to expose this error in your thinking, but when we say something exists, we say "it exists", we don't say "it is true". The statement, "the cat exists" may be true, but that doesn't mean the cat itself is true. Truth is a concept by which we measure the accuracy of a statement about the world, not the world itself.

Alright I'll deal with this confusion... the information from which the statement itself is made *is also a statement in and of itself*, it's only value is that it is there or absent (positive detection, or negative detection). i.e. the information is present or absent. An easy experiment: Misspell a wrod. Notice how the word is misspelled. You know it is misspelled merely by the presence or absence of a structure. So the structure itself is also a statement that is either true (present) or negatively true (absent).

So the information bits we collect from the world via our organs are combined into chains of concepts which make up the statement "the cat exists" also note that every statement is physically bound to the context which requires interpretation (detection and comparison), which requires the detection or absence of structure itself. When you say "the cat exists", the statement itself must be composed of bits of information - physical structure. Thus the information to MAKE the higher level statement "the cat exists" is ALSO a statement itself.

So the argument follows: The bits of information which are combined into concepts which we received from the world is what our statement is composed of. But the information bits that make up the statement was a set of information that existed in the world already that our senses re-organized and re-arranged (combined) into higher level concepts. So structural bits tehmselves are either EXISTING (postiively True) or absent (negatively true).

Every concept you have is derived from information that was received from the world itself, this information your organs merely re-arranges into higher level concepts (which are statements in and of themselves, since bits of information are also self-referencing statements whose only values fall along being present or absent).

The argument can't be followed if you don't think about the process of conceptualization. This process of conceptualization is by taking bits of information from the world itself and combining them but these physical bits of information are also statements in and of themselves.

It's a very layered approach, but you can skip talking about layers by simply giving an simple experiment:

By asking empircal questions and their logical consequences, if existence is not a form of truth, and truth does NOT contain information, and information and structure are NOT equivalent.

The problem arises, how is detection (knowability, perception, thought, navigation) possible?

This is a pardox because it would be impossible to even be aware if these are not true because of the detection paradox, which requires you to think about the mechanics of how information detection work in the physical world.

Hyacinth

20th October 2009, 07:40

When you are perceiving you are interpreting and reasoning (i.e. processing information).
And you are making a rather primitive category mistake, as reasoning isn't, nor does it consist in, information processing. This is not how we use the term, and by extension it is not our concept. And, reading on, the rest of what you say is similarly based on various conceptual confusions.

Mo212

20th October 2009, 08:42

And you are making a rather primitive category mistake, as reasoning isn't, nor does it consist in, information processing.This is not how we use the term, and by extension it is not our concept. And, reading on, the rest of what you say is similarly based on various conceptual confusions.

Category mistake definition : an error by which a property is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly have that property. You don't even understand the definition of category mistake. The brains comparing functionality makes it possible for a person to notice differences and similarities, is the ultimate disproof of your assertion. i.e. distinguish between thoughts, memories, distinct elements of perception (i.e. colors in a picture, etc, etc).

You have shown to me you are trolling and are rather misinformed. Please view this video on reasoning and the enlightenment fallacy.

PYmi0DLzBdQ

Hyacinth

20th October 2009, 09:18

Category mistake definition : an error by which a property is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly have that property. You don't even understand the definition of category mistake. The brains comparing functionality makes it possible for a person to notice differences and similarities, is the ultimate disproof of your assertion. i.e. distinguish between thoughts, memories, distinct elements of perception (i.e. colors in a picture, etc, etc).

You have shown to me you are trolling and are rather misinformed. Please view this video on reasoning and the enlightenment fallacy.
I misspoke, what I meant to say was "conceptual confusion". And the brain's comparing functionality, or any other, has nothing to do with what I said.

I fail to see what the content of the video has anything to do with the objections that I, or anyone else, have raised. Nor for that matter does it have anything to do with the points you are trying to make, inasmuch as sense can be made of them.

While cognitive science has certainly made tremendous progress in uncovering our various cognitive biases, showing how we are bad at reasoning (hardly a discovery), the import of this is?

Mo212

20th October 2009, 09:48

I fail to see what the content of the video has anything to do with the objections that I, or anyone else, have raised.

You have raised no objections only a strawman argument, you have point out the errors and show why you believe they are mistaken thereby we can find out whether there is really an error or a misunderstanding on your part. If I have made "conceptual errors" then that means there is a mistake in something I have said and you have to point out exactly where and why, statement by statement or else you don't have a case (you didn't know in the first place). Saying "all of it is wrong", under your little euphamism "conceptual errors" means by definition you know where the errors are so you must point them out, otherwise: You have no claim and are lying.

Hyacinth

20th October 2009, 10:08

You have raised no objections only a strawman argument, you have point out the errors and show why you believe they are mistaken thereby we can find out whether there is really an error or a misunderstanding on your part. If I have made "conceptual errors" then that means there is a mistake in something I have said and you have to point out exactly where and why, statement by statement or else you don't have a case (you didn't know in the first place). Saying "all of it is wrong", under your little euphamism "conceptual errors" means by definition you know where the errors are so you must point them out, otherwise: You have no claim and are lying.
It seems you can't, or don't, read. I've already spelled out my objection to your view: your views (as confused as they are) are premised upon the equation of reasoning with information processing, and this simply isn't what reasoning means. Case and point being in that while it is appropriate to say of a computer that is processes information, it is not appropriate to say of it that is reasons.

As well, in the last post I wasn't raising objections. I was pointing out that I failed to see the connection between the video and the point that you are trying to make, which ought to be your cue to clarify. Evidently you cannot since, as Rosa has pointed out, you don't understand your own confused theory.

I do notice that rather than address what anyone has said, or taken the opportunity to clarify your theory to us mere mortals, you have resorted to abuse.

Mo212

20th October 2009, 10:31

It seems you can't, or don't, read. I've already spelled out my objection to your view: your views (as confused as they are) are premised upon the equation of reasoning with information processing, and this simply isn't what reasoning means. Case and point being in that while it is appropriate to say of a computer that is processes information, it is not appropriate to say of it that is reasons.

As well, in the last post I wasn't raising objections. I was pointing out that I failed to see the connection between the video and the point that you are trying to make, which ought to be your cue to clarify. Evidently you cannot since, as Rosa has pointed out, you don't understand your own confused theory.

I do notice that rather than address what anyone has said, or taken the opportunity to clarify your theory to us mere mortals, you have resorted to abuse.

I resorted to being a little edgy and mean because you didn't even take the time to address the statements or point out the errors in the statements, instead you made up bullshit and passed it off as if that was what I said. So yeah I was a little mad. Not only that I had made no category mistake, my claim was that all statements are derived from reality.

You made a completley bullshit claim about my premise. But you never even looked at what my claim and premise was. Since it is completely apparent you didn't even read any posts earlier then the last page or so or you would have seen that the argument was about the premise was : All statements are made of reality and derived from it.

That is why your post is absolute god damn proof you didn't do due diligence before butting in which means your trolling, so yeah I'm understandably a bit pissed off by your intellectual sloppyness and you completely ignoring what was being discussed.

My post to the video was to show and demonstrate that people don't have the universal capability of understanding other persons reasoning. Error on your part #1, but also fallacies (that reasoning is universal, its literal, etc, etc). Most people believe that just because they read something they understand it by way of their ability to reason, the whole point of that video was to debunk that IDEA, that is why I posted it to begin with.

The main argument was that all statements are derived from reality, made of reality, therefore they inherit its properties and reality is fully integrated. Reality is isomorphic to reality. So we know it is quite apparent you have misunderstood the argument by trying to pull out a red herring about premises but your objection was shit you made up out of thin air! Because you weren't even following the argument because you would have known and dealt with the main question and premise - are all statements made of and derived from reality?

What I was getting down to was the detectability (deriving/knowability problem) in the world... the how of how you are able to make statements, distinctions, comparisons, etc in the first place. Since all human concepts are derived from the constituents of reality. That was the claim, so please do not misrepresent my argument with your own words again and deal with what I have said.

Rosa Lichtenstein

20th October 2009, 10:36

Mo212:

Sigh... I'm asking you an empirical question. Can you detect your environment, yes or no? How did you detect it? (you received information from it). It doesn't require any kind of sophisticated argument.

Detection is something an instrument does -- or perhaps what a detective does. I am neither of these things.

And, you are once again helping yourself to the word 'information'. If you are employing it as a technical term, from Information Theory, then this has nothing to do with our ordinary use of this word. Which way are you using it? Or do you intend it in a new, and as-yet-unexplained sense?

But then you say this:

No I have explained it, I said information is structure and structure and existence are equivalent (else you could not detect and know about them - i.e. the navigation paradox).

So, you are using this word in a technical sense. Hence, this has nothing to do with how we ordinarily use this word.

However, this is to treat human beings as if they were machines (hence your reference to the Navigation Paradox and to detection). But, as I have already pointed out to you, knowledge is expressed by indicative sentences, to which we give sense as language users. So, all this scientistic 'theory' on your part has nothing to do with knowledge and/or truth.

What you are doing is confusing two distinct senses of typographically identical words: "information" (typically, but not exclusively, that which is expressed by an indicative sentence, which is why you have to keep using them) and "information" (connected Information Theory).

This would be like someone confusing "bank" with "bank" in this conversation:

A: I then banked the aeroplane.

B: What? You put it in your account in Barclays?

A: No, idiot. I turned in!

So, you and I are talking at cross purposes. But the bottom line is that your theory is not about truth, or knowledge, but about whatever Information Theory has to say.

The question is: does Information Theory tell us the truth? And that cannot be answered by Information Theory without involving ourselves in a vicious circle.

And as I have already argued, existence and structure cannot be the same, since there are many structures that no longer exist -- for example, the Colossus of Rhodes. Indeed, there are some things that still exist which aren't structures, for example, the Amazon jungle. If it were a structure, it must have been built by someone. Who built the Amazon jungle? Or are you using 'structure', too, in a new and as-yet-unexplained sense?

When you say I haven't "Explained" it, you're chickening out,

As you can see, the confusion here has arisen because you were using technical terms, but still avoiding the central question. Hence, you still haven't explained what this has to do with knowledge or scientific truth.

I'm asking you to THINK THROUGH the implications of you NOT accepting that the worlds structure and information are NOT EQUIVALENT and the kinds of REAL WORLD EMPIRICAL PARADOXES that arise from that in order for you to grasp the argument.

In Information Theory they may be, but this has nothing to do with how either word is used in ordinary discourse. In that case, and once again, you have not explained scientific truth, knowledge or even information.

And, I fail to see what paradoxes arise from the ordinary use of language.

The ones required for you [B]to detect and perform functions like oh, navigation (something damn fucking empirically demonstrable)

No need to swear.

functions[/I]?]

Once more, neither of us 'detects' functions, unless you are a machine or a police investigator (I certainly am neither).

Your confusion has arisen because you are using language like a 'philistine'.

You are showing how bloody incapable you are of following the argument. In order to DETECT (know) something in your environment you must RECEIVE information from the environment, yes or no? This is an empirical question.

Once more, no need to swear. The fault lies in you, my confused friend, since you are using language in a bizarre way, as I pointed out in an earlier post.

Detection is not to know something. A detective might, for example, have to do what it takes to detect who did a crime, and thus come to know who did it. But that just shows that detection and knowledge are not the same. Otherwise we'd say that detectives no longer detected they just knew, and so could cut out all that wasted time on gathering evidence.

And machines do not know anything, either.

Hence, your attempt to equate detection with knowledge has failed, too.

And, neither you nor I receive 'information' from our environments, unless you think the environment talks to us in indicative sentences. You might convey information to me, but in order to do that you'd (typically) have to use such sentences (as indeed you do). Do you think the world around you is talking to you? That is usually a sign of psychiatric problems.

I define information as structure. So I have given my definition already and you say I haven't given one which is nonsense. In order for you to know a thing, it has to exist as a structure first in order for you to detect it.

Then this is a stipulative re-definition which does not affect the ordinary use of this word, and you are no further forward.

To give an analogy: Let us suppose C murders D for money, and when arrested he/she says "Ah, but it's not murder, since I define murder as the unlawful taking of life except where monetary gain is involved."

You are doing something similar with words like 'information', 'structure', and 'knowledge'.

No wonder then that I have had to tell you you have explained nothing at all.

And, it is possible for us to know something that isn't a 'structure', as you call it. For example, I know that the River Nile is longer than the River Thames. Which 'structure' is involved here, and who built it?

You see what confusions you drop yourself into when you use language in such bizarre ways?

We can empirically demonstrate this with a simple navigation experiment by having you open or close your eyes and trying to navigate around objects.

What has this got to do with anything in this thread? We have known, probably for hundreds of thousands of years, that if we keep our eyes open we tend to bump into things less often.

But, that does not seem to me to be anything to get our metaphysical knickers in a twist over.

You're once again are purposely attacking a strawman.

In fact, you have constructed tailor's dummy, and tried to con the rest of us into thinking it was a living, breathing man.

All I have done is point this out to you.

[B]And we are still waiting for your proof that there are such things as 'states of knowledge'.

Mo212

20th October 2009, 11:58

Mo212:

Detection is something an instrument does -- or perhaps what a detective does. I am neither of these things.

Sigh, do you believe in an immortal soul, are you religious per chance or something? Do you not believe that the mind is a physical entity and that thought is physical? This may explain why you seem to be anti-scientific. Information - any difference, distinction, structure or inequality.

So, you are using this word in a technical sense. Hence, this has nothing to do with how we ordinarily use this word. [But on this, see below.

Red herring, you're saying something that is patently not true. Since the argument is that matter/energy and information are equivalent in physics.

However, this is to treat human beings as if they were machines (hence your reference to the Navigation Paradox and to detection). But, as I have already pointed out to you, knowledge is expressed by indicative sentences,

Yes but this missed the point, your sentences in your mind before they are typed out are contained in your mind as thoughts made of matter and energy, which is equivalent to information, and also in order for you to navigate (have knowledge about your environment) this means information itself are statements themselves (i.e. existability paradox). Say you type out a morse code, now the information contained within the morse code. Someone needs information about decoding it order to decode it.

What you are doing is confusing two distinct senses of typographically identical words:

No I'm not I'm using the information in terms of matter and energy, this has been apparent from the start with my claim of "all statements made of and are derived from reality". Do not say what I didn't say please.

So, you and I are talking at cross purposes. But the bottom line is that your theory is not about truth, or knowledge, but about whatever Information Theory has to say.

Wrong you just have shown you can't understand the argument so it's pointless to waste my breath, it was apparent from the start I was talking about information. You have demonstrated your ability to create straw mans of my argument, and are simply incapable of grasping the argument.

Mo212

20th October 2009, 12:08

Mo212:
And as I have already argued, existence and structure cannot be the same, since there are many structures that no longer exist -- for example, the Colossus of Rhodes. Indeed, there are some things that still exist which aren't structures, for example, the Amazon jungle.

Ahh but this is where it all comes apart for you... and shows you didn't understand what I meant by "structure" (i.e. the matter and energy), nor the argument. What is a collosus of rhodes? Just a bunch of structural matter and energy arranged in a particular way, so when we say "the collosus of rodes doesn't exist" the reality is that 'the structure of rhodes was re-arranged into smaller pieces (i.e. erosion, etc, etc), the "rhodes collusus" is just a label for a bunch of stuff that already existed which we arranged into a particular shape, now when we say "rhodes does not exist", in reality the constiuent structure (matter and energy) of which rhodes was made certainly still does exist in a different arrangment.

This my big point here lost on the audience "the stuff was not lost, just re-arranged". So while the pieces of which the collousus was made are not still arranged as a collosus, the constiuents of matter and energy most certainly STILL EXIST.

Rosa Lichtenstein

20th October 2009, 14:13

Mo212:

Sigh, do you believe in an immortal soul, are you religious per chance or something? Do you not believe that the mind is a physical entity and that thought is physical? This may explain why you seem to be anti-scientific. Information - any difference, distinction, structure or inequality.

No, I certainly do not believe this (and I can't think what made you infer that it do). Nevertheless, I note that you have to use the Cartesian word 'mind' to make this response of yours even seem to work.

In fact, the 'soul' was invented partly to explain how we can reason and communicate -- so, us humans are supposed to have something intelligent in our heads which does our thinking for us, and which sends us, and then others, 'messages', or 'information'.

As we will see below, in doing this you have to anthropomorphise nature (and the 'mind'), all the while de-humanising us human beings! On your 'theory', we are no longer agents, but are controlled by intelligences in nature (that send us 'information') and in our heads (which do the same). These are the real agents, we are the robots. You have thus inverted reality to suit your 'theory'!

The only difference is that you have dropped the dualism, but retained the rationale behind it, hidden now under a pseudo-scientific fig leaf.

As for me, I neither believe that the 'mind' is a physical nor a non-physical entity, since the philosophical use of this word is derived from Cartesian/Christian dualism, as one expert notes:

"Western conceptions of mind began in religion before moving first to philosophy, and then to science. However, for two reasons psychologists have underestimated the influence of religious ideas of the soul -- the ψυχή (psychē -- soul, RL) of our science -- on conceptions of mind and self. First, psychology is an aggressively secular enterprise and psychologists like to think that they put religion behind them when they assume their role as scientists. A more subtle reason concerns the dominance of historical scholarship by Christian belief. When we as psychologists read about past thinkers such as Plato and Descartes, not only do we look at them as protopsychologists, we see them through the eyes of historians and classicists who until recently worked within a quietly but unequivocally held Christian framework. That framework rarely intrudes explicitly, but it filters out the rough splinters, odd conceptions, and obscure but vital disputes concerning mind and soul held from Greek times through to at least Descartes. Thus we psychologists inherit a conception of the mind subtly shaped by forces of which we know little, drain it of its specifically supernatural content (e.g., survival of bodily death), and fancy that what remains is somehow natural and therefore a proper object of science....

"Although there are differences in detail, religions around the world have a remarkably concordant picture of the mind, positing the existence of two immaterial souls for two distinct reasons.... The first, universal reason is to explain the difference between living and nonliving things. The second, less universal reason is to explain human personality....

"Greek religion and the concept of ψυχή underwent a profound change in the later fifth century BCE.... Traditional Greek religious thought had insisted on a great gulf between the human and divine worlds, downplaying the idea of personal immortality. However, in the wake of the Peloponnesian War, continuity between the human and divine worlds was the theme of various new cults, often imported from the non-Greek east. In their practices these new religions induced in worshippers ecstatic states through which they might for a time join the gods, perhaps even briefly becoming the god of their veneration. The ψυχή became a personal, immortal soul, taking after death its rightful place in the divine world of the gods. Plato was influenced by these new teachings, but steered them in a less ecstatic, more philosophical and cognitive direction.... For Plato, the proper object of the soul's attention was indeed something divine, but he taught that instead of seeking salvation through ecstatic communion with the gods, the soul should seek salvation through philosophical pursuit of eternal, transcendental Truth. In Plato's hands, the mind became identified with reason, the ability to formulate and know the universal Truths underwritten by the heavenly Forms." [Leahy (2005), pp.37-39.]

Leahy, T. (2005), 'Mind As A Scientific Object: A Historical-Philosophical Exploration', in Erneling and Johnson (2005), pp.35-78.

Erneling, C., and Johnson, D. (2005) (eds.), The Mind As A Scientific Object. Between Brain And Culture (Oxford University Press).

In short I reject the philosophical use of this word as entirely bogus. And the ordinary use of the word does not refer to anything going on in our heads.

All I have pointed out to you is that you are using language in a bizarre way to try to make your 'theory' seem to work.

Your use of language suggests you in fact believe that nature has a mind, and is trying to communicate 'information' to us!

This may explain why you seem to be anti-scientific

I am not anti-science either; I am in fact anti-scientism: that is, the confused use of scientific jargon and metaphor in an amateurish attempt to do a little 'philosophising', just like you are attempting to do here.

That explains why you have to help yourself to certain technical terms and why you then confuse them with typographically identical words taken from ordinary language. Once more: this means that your 'theory' implies you think nature is intelligent and is trying to send us messages.

And what is this:

Information - any difference, distinction, structure or inequality.

If this is a definition, it is useless. And it certainly does not tell us what the word means in ordinary language. But you need the ordinary language term to connect your odd ideas about 'structures', and 'existence' to truth and knowledge -- when all the while you fail to notice the slide in meaning that occurs when you flip from this technical sense of 'information' to its ordinary sense.

So, it's that ordinary sense that you need, and on which you rely to make your 'theory' seem to work, and it is this sense that means your theory attributes to nature human qualities -- that is, that nature/reality is trying to talk to us, and send us 'information'.

Red herring, you're saying something that is patently not true. Since the argument is that matter/energy and information are equivalent in physics.

Maybe so, maybe not, but that was not the point I was making (as was clear from my post anyway -- so I think you have lapsed into not being able to read plain English again). However, since I have clarified this above, I will say no more about it.

Yes but this missed the point, your sentences in your mind before they are typed out are contained in your mind as thoughts made of matter and energy, which is equivalent to information, and also in order for you to navigate (have knowledge about your environment) this means information itself are statements themselves (i.e. existability paradox). Say you type out a morse code, now the information contained within the morse code. Someone needs information about decoding it order to decode it.

Well, this seems to confuse the quasi-Cartesian 'Mind' you are referring to here with a human being, and that it is this 'inner human being' (this homunculus) that is now trying to send me/you messages!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus

We seem to be getting messages from everywhere! Little men/women in the head and little men/women in nature.

So, all you have succeeded in doing is transferring your original problem (which had you imagining that nature was trying to send us messages) to the Mind/brain. This is no advance at all, since it suggests now that nature is a human being and so is the 'mind'!

But, if we human beings need these 'extra human beings' (those that populate nature and the 'mind', as implied by your 'theory') to send us information, from where did these 'new human beings' get theirs? Yet more 'extra human beings'? And so on...

So, even if you were right, this just postpones the problem, it does not solve it.

this means information itself are statements themselves (i.e. existability paradox). Say you type out a morse code, now the information contained within the morse code. Someone needs information about decoding it order to decode it

Well, a code relies on a code maker, a message already in some language to be coded, a coding manual, a person to do the coding, or to programme a machine to do it, a decoding manual, a person to do the decoding, or to programme a machine to do it, and a language to decode into. So this has you now postulating the 'Mind'/brain with several 'inner human beings' to do all this work, all of them language users already (so they can't use codes themselves (or they will have to have all this in their 'Minds' too!, and so on), meaning that once again, nothing has been explained) -- unless, of course, you are using 'code' in a new, and as-yet-unexplained sense, too.

Language cannot be a code, nor the result of a code, since a code requires there to be a language there already to translate messages already expressed in language into this code. But, then that will require a language to exist before there was a language!

But, how could that possibly come about?

And your reference Morse code here simply confirms that you have confused the technical sense of 'information' with its ordinary sense. Morse code can transmit information only because some language or other exists already, out of which messages are then coded, and a language into which the code can be decoded. So codes depend on language, not the other way round. This means that your 'theory' needs the ordinary meaning of 'information' for it to seem to work -- while you then proceed to confuse this ordinary meaning with the technical sense of typographically the same word, as I have alleged all along.

Hence all the anthropomorphic implications of your 'theory' -- that is, you have already anthropomorphised nature (alleging that is sends us 'information' in 'messages') and now you do the same to the 'Mind'! -- depend on this simple linguistic confusion.

You are indeed just as confused as this joker:

A: I then banked the aeroplane.

B: What? You put it into your account in Barclays?

A: No, idiot. I turned in!

You:

No I'm not I'm using the information in terms of matter and energy, this has been apparent from the start with my claim of "all statements made of and are derived from reality". Do not say what I didn't say please.

And yet, as I have shown above, you are indeed running these two uses of 'information' together.

One minute it appears in its technical sense in Information Theory (I presume this is what you are doing -- you neglected to say), then the next you are using it in its ordinary sense.

No wonder you end up with a theory that implies you think nature is a human being who is talking to you!

Wrong you just have shown you can't understand the argument so it's pointless to waste my breath, it was apparent from the start I was talking about information. You have demonstrated your ability to create straw mans of my argument, and are simply incapable of grasping the argument.

Well, if I do not understand it then I'm in good company, since, as we have been able to see for several days now, not even you understand your 'theory'.

No straw men here anywhere in sight, in fact; what we do have though in their place is a rather ropey 'argument'/'theory' of yours, one that has tied you in knots.

Ahh but this is where it all comes apart for you... and shows you didn't understand what I meant by "structure" (i.e. the matter and energy), nor the argument. What is a Colossus of Rhodes? Just a bunch of structural matter and energy arranged in a particular way, so when we say "the Colossus of Rhodes doesn't exist" the reality is that 'the structure of Rhodes was re-arranged into smaller pieces (i.e. erosion, etc, etc), the "Rhodes Colossus" is just a label for a bunch of stuff that already existed which we arranged into a particular shape, now when we say "Rhodes does not exist", in reality the constituent structure (matter and energy) of which Rhodes was made certainly still does exist in a different arrangement.

So, this comment of yours:

What is a Colossus of Rhodes? Just a bunch of structural matter and energy arranged in a particular way,

means that you agree that a 'structure' has to be made by intelligent human beings -- the word is, after all, taken from the verb 'to construct', which is what intelligent agents do.

Now, if you want to use 'structure' in a new, and as-yet-unexplained sense, fine -- but what is it? You neglected to say.

so when we say "the Colossus of Rhodes doesn't exist" the reality is that 'the structure of Rhodes was re-arranged into smaller pieces (i.e. erosion, etc, etc),

But then, it is no longer a structure -- unless you think that erosion preserves the original structure!

You'll be telling us next that the Twin Towers in New York had their structure preserved by the two aeroplanes that flew into them!

This shows that even you do not think that structure and existence are the same (they certainly aren't synonymous in language) -- unless, again, you are using these two words in a new and as-yet-unexplained sense. But then, what it is?

This my big point here lost on the audience "the stuff was not lost, just re-arranged". So while the pieces of which the Colossus was made are not still arranged as a Colossus, the constituents of matter and energy most certainly STILL EXIST.

But this just connects a change in the said object (the Colossus of Rhodes) with its eroded parts. They certainly do not now have a structure -- unless, once more, you mean by this a technical sense of 'structure'.

Once again, this running-together of two different uses of the 'same' word is confusing you.

But, this is where we came in...

Mo212

20th October 2009, 14:50

Mo212:
bla bla bla
..

You are not capable of understanding the argument "The end". You keep misrepresneting and redefining my words as you go along which makes the whole exercise pointless.

Consider
But then, it is no longer a structure -- unless you think that erosion preserves the original structure!

When you refer to "structure" you are not referring to what I'm referring to, I'm referring to every distinct element in the universe of which the universe is made, i.e. reality itself. The information/energy (the structure) in reality did not stop existing it was merely re-arranged. You're once again attacking a misrepresentation of my argument because you are inserting your own confusion into it. When you refer to the collusus "as a strucutre that no longer exists" you are confused because "the rhodes statue" is merely an arrangement of matter in a particular context at a particular place in time, you are saying that "the bits of reality that were once the rhodes statue are no longer arranged at such a position" that's real truth behind your words and what you are saying, so when you say "it doesn't exist" you are merely referring to an arrangement of reality that is no longer in that shape, but all the the stuff still exists (i.e. if you were god you could make another rhodes statue exactly like the one in the past and it would "exist" again, you're confusing "existence" versus the reality of "arrangement".

But this just connects a change in the said object (the Colossus of Rhodes) with its eroded parts.

And what was my claim? "That all statements are derived and made of reality itself", i.e. the "rhodes collusus" is just bits and pieces of reality arranged in a particular way, the bits and pieces of reality from which the rhodes collusus was made did not stop existing.

Once again, this running-together of two different uses of the 'same' word is confusing you.

LOL this is what you are doing, you are imputing to me what you are doing, I have done no such thing.

Hyacinth

20th October 2009, 18:31

I resorted to being a little edgy and mean because you didn't even take the time to address the statements or point out the errors in the statements, instead you made up bullshit and passed it off as if that was what I said. So yeah I was a little mad. Not only that I had made no category mistake, my claim was that all statements are derived from reality.
And you haven't addressed my objection re: you conceptual confusion. I already said that I misspoke (or, as it were, mistyped).

You made a completley bullshit claim about my premise. But you never even looked at what my claim and premise was. Since it is completely apparent you didn't even read any posts earlier then the last page or so or you would have seen that the argument was about the premise was : All statements are made of reality and derived from it.
You equated reasoning with information processing, which it is not as it plain from how we talk about it.

As for your claim that all statements are made of and derived form reality is either trivially true as to not even be worth mentioning as it has no real content, or else patently false. Statements aren't made of "reality" (whatever that means), they are composed of, if anything, words. As from being derived from reality, if you mean in the sense of originating from it, then also in any non-trivial sense they do not originate from "reality", they originate form us. If you mean derived in the sense of reasoned from, again no, a statement which is the conclusion of an argument is reasoned from premises of that argument, not from "reality". Nor are all statements about reality, that is, not all statements are indicative.

That is why your post is absolute god damn proof you didn't do due diligence before butting in which means your trolling, so yeah I'm understandably a bit pissed off by your intellectual sloppyness and you completely ignoring what was being discussed.
What can I say, I go with the flow of the discussion, seeing as you've ignored all objections to your view, as Rosa continuously points out.

My post to the video was to show and demonstrate that people don't have the universal capability of understanding other persons reasoning. Error on your part #1, but also fallacies (that reasoning is universal, its literal, etc, etc). Most people believe that just because they read something they understand it by way of their ability to reason, the whole point of that video was to debunk that IDEA, that is why I posted it to begin with.
Yes, and? This has anything to do with what was being discussed? Did I claim that all people are capable of understanding, or that all people are rational? Hardly. If anything, you are a clear counterexample.

The main argument was that all statements are derived from reality, made of reality, therefore they inherit its properties and reality is fully integrated. Reality is isomorphic to reality. So we know it is quite apparent you have misunderstood the argument by trying to pull out a red herring about premises but your objection was shit you made up out of thin air! Because you weren't even following the argument because you would have known and dealt with the main question and premise - are all statements made of and derived from reality?
You are absolutely correct that I haven't followed the argument, as you haven't presented an argument to follow, but rather a series of assertions, abuse, and nonsense.

What I was getting down to was the detectability (deriving/knowability problem) in the world... the how of how you are able to make statements, distinctions, comparisons, etc in the first place. Since all human concepts are derived from the constituents of reality. That was the claim, so please do not misrepresent my argument with your own words again and deal with what I have said.
I am dealing with what you have said, by pointing out that what you have said is senseless. The words you are using don't mean whatever it is that you think they mean. You are perfectly free to invent new and technical terms, so long as you tell us how you are using them, and what their new meaning is; which, incidentally, you've yet to do.

Rosa Lichtenstein

20th October 2009, 18:33

Mo212:

You are not capable of understanding the argument "The end". You keep misrepresenting and redefining my words as you go along which makes the whole exercise pointless.

In that case, as I noted before, I am in excellent company, since you do not appear to understand it either.

And I do not re-define your words, I merely point out that you are a serial equivocator over your use of words: one minute you are employing ordinary words (like 'truth', 'structure' and 'information'), the next technical and yet-to-be-explained words, which you then mix together, thoroughly confusing yourself.

When you refer to "structure" you are not referring to what I'm referring to, I'm referring to every distinct element in the universe of which the universe is made, i.e. reality itself. The information/energy (the structure) in reality did not stop existing it was merely re-arranged. You're once again attacking a misrepresentation of my argument because you are inserting your own confusion into it. When you refer to the colossus "as a structure that no longer exists" you are confused because "the Rhodes statue" is merely an arrangement of matter in a particular context at a particular place in time, you are saying that "the bits of reality that were once the Rhodes statue are no longer arranged at such a position" that's real truth behind your words and what you are saying, so when you say "it doesn't exist" you are merely referring to an arrangement of reality that is no longer in that shape, but all the stuff still exists (i.e. if you were god you could make another Rhodes statue exactly like the one in the past and it would "exist" again, you're confusing "existence" versus the reality of "arrangement".

Except, as I also noted, you are in fact using the ordinary word 'structure' alongside a new and yet-unexplained technical word typographically the same as 'structure', all the while running the two together.

This explains the confusion you keep descending into, wherein your 'theory' suggests you believe that both nature your 'mind'/brain are intelligent beings that send you messages and information.

So, no wonder neither you nor I can 'understand' your 'theory'.

Moreover, I note you ignored my long and detailed diagnosis of your difficulty and how you have dropped yourself into it.

And what was my claim? "That all statements are derived and made of reality itself", i.e. the "Rhodes Colossus" is just bits and pieces of reality arranged in a particular way, the bits and pieces of reality from which the Rhodes Colossus was made did not stop existing.

Well, I answered this a few days ago (which you ignored) and again in my last post. Once more, then -- what part of reality is this sentence 'derived' from?

Quarks are pi (i.e., 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288..., and so on forever) parsecs wide and were baked in Nirvana 2500 years ago in the future by Big Foot assisted by a tribe of Yetis and the entire Norse Pantheon.

And you now seem to think that the Colossus of Rhodes is a statement!

"That all statements are derived and made of reality itself", i.e. the "Rhodes Colossus" is just bits and pieces of reality arranged in a particular way, the bits and pieces of reality from which the Rhodes Colossus was made did not stop existing.

Bold added.

See how confused you are becoming.

[Even I will not be able to help you soon!]

Either that, or you think that the name "Rhodes Colossus" is a statement, when no name can be a statement (the latter are typically indicative sentences).

LOL this is what you are doing, you are imputing to me what you are doing, I have done no such thing.

All you are doing here is flatly denying what I have argued. You need to show where I have gone wrong if you want to stand any chance of being believed.

Until you do, my claim still applies -- you are as confused as this numpty:

A: I put my money in the bank.

B: Why on earth did you bury it in the side of a river?