Now this presents a genuine problem. As @tim wood is finding, addressing these sort of posts is pointless. The analysis I am proposing helps us to see why. If one's protagonist does not have sufficient grasp of the issue before they enter into discussion, they will not have sufficient grasp to understand that their view has been shown to be erroneous.

We can see that clearly in Devan's case. He continues to attempt division by zero, despite it being pointed out that it is illegitimate.

Now to any one with a moderate grasp of mathematics, it might look as if Devans is making a legitimate point. That is, there is a certain level of mathematical competence that is required in order to see how far wrong he has gone.

And that means that someone like Tim, who knows what they are talking about, must spend an inordinate effort in showing where Devans goes astray.

But that's hard to do; hence, folk such as Devans can thrive in the gaps between legitimate discourse.

You have failed to counter my argument and move on to a therefore completely unwarranted conclusion. That is childish and admitting defeat. — Devans99

See? Devans lacks the understanding needed to see how he is wrong.

And here, learning stops.

Thank goodness this sort of thing does not happen in, say, politics - imagine the sort of President we might end up with if it did!

You cannot make a coherent counter point. What am I to conclude? - You have no coherent counter points. If you had a coherent counter point, I'm sure you would make the effort to explain it but you don't. Your mind is closed to the possibility that what you were taught at school is wrong, yet as I've pointed out, it is a certainty that a good proportion of what you were taught at school is wrong.

Engage with my argument for F**Ks sake.

If you have a point with zero length, how many are there on a line segment length one?

1 / 0 = ?

If you have a point with zero length, how many are there on a line segment length one? — Devans99

Again, the answer is that the number of points on a line segment is uncountable.

The topic here is not mathematics; it's why folk like you can't recognise when their argument has been defeated.

Now another thing is, given that Devans has been shown to be wrong, that he is at odds with accepted body of mathematics, what should happen?

One might hope that Devans would go read some books and learn some maths.

But instead, he digs in, refusing to reconsider his position. Perhaps what is important for him is not being wrong or being right, but being the Maverick.

You have said that I'm wrong which is different to showing that I wrong.

And it's a problem for moderation on the forums, too.

Witness the recent discussion concerning banning @Bartricks: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/7115/banning-bartricks-for-breaking-site-guidelines/p1

Thats typical... don't agree with someone... let's try to get them banned. You'd like a forum where everyone agrees with you. What exactly would be the point of such a forum?

That seems like an incredibly high standard of whats “proper”. What are some things you have this kind of account of?

You'd like a forum where everyone agrees with you. — Devans99

No. I want a forum where the disagreement is legitimate.

That seems like an incredibly high standard of whats “proper”. What are some things you have this kind of account of? — DingoJones

Indeed. It's a universal standard. One without exception.

The questioning was about what counts as a proper account of all thought and belief, and hence "mind"...

The answers were about what an acceptable theory of mind needed to include in order to be a proper account of all thought and belief, and thus... of all mind.

@Devans99, how about just treating undefined as a predicate, rather than a value (if you really must remain technical about it)?

1/0 = undefined (n)
undefined(1/0) (y)

Or, colloquially, we may just call it nonsense.
You don't see mathematicians using = about undefined (unless, perhaps, there's an implicit context by which that's understood).
Whatever expressions are undefined we stay away from if we want to make sense.

You didnt answer the question sir. What are some things that you have this kind of account for?

A workable, acceptable, or even just merely descriptive theory of mind is beyond the human mind to construct. — god must be atheist

Do you have an argument and/or reasoning process... some intelligible coherent line of thought that has led you to such a conclusion? — creativesoul

1. No theory to explain the workings of the mind has been established.
2. Assuming the mind is a product of brain functions, we have no knowledge of how the brain works other than noticing blood flow and excited electron movement in some parts of the brain.

-------These first two points were empirically based. The next point is a priori based.

3. If we want to know how the mind works, we have to make a mental image of the mind. But to make a mental image of the mind, we need a storage capacity that equals the mental image, and then some more storage capacity to manipulate the thoughts that explain the mind. Therefore to explain the mind, we need a larger, better, more intelligent thing than our mind. Which is not achievable because you can't have something bigger than itself.

Sorry for the late reply, @Creativesoul, but I think two pages' worth of replies were generated very quickly, without my watching the thread.

Students Have 'Dismaying' Inability To Tell Fake News From Real, Study Finds

"The kinds of duties that used to be the responsibility of editors, of librarians, now fall on the shoulders of anyone who uses a screen to become informed about the world."

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/11/23/503129818/study-finds-students-have-dismaying-inability-to-tell-fake-news-from-real?fbclid=IwAR29U7dZfZVbW9wmxBZuNg_JI1dxWDt_CuQB7mBg1sNgiJw6uP3POFv63do




In this climate of information crisis, better to be over- than under-critical.

I've found the critical tenor - i.e., continuously formulating objections as one comes to an understanding of a philosophical position - is as potent a learning-style as any. The key is not to neglect to - just as continuously - turn the critical eye back upon itself. Self-criticism should be as pointed and unforgiving as criticism of others.

A dovetailing or synergy of other-criticism and self-criticism can serve to purify and personalize our understanding of a difficult point or position.

In this climate of information crisis, better to be over- than under-critical. — ZzzoneiroCosm

I'm tempted to agree with you. But I do have concerns. The collapse of trust only emphasizes our passivity. The 'decapitated machine' of capitalism doesn't need anything from us but our mindless conformity to the usual buying and selling.

But I don't have any easy answers. I've just been thinking of this 'headlessness' and how it connects to the spectacle and the banalization of philosophy. My doubts are 'useless and unprofitable.' A short-term prudence dictates that I 'forget all that' and just gather coins. As long as fame and money are our gods, the philosopher is a comic figure, a cartoon.

Self-criticism should be as pointed and unforgiving as criticism of others.

A dovetailing or synergy of other-criticism and self-criticism can serve to purify and personalize our understanding of a difficult point or position. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Well said.

In this climate of information crisis, better to be over- than under-critical. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Well...

Better yet to be well-informed. What is it that mathematicians, climate scientists, botanists and biologists actually say?

It's now astonishingly easy, from the point fo view of an old bastard such as I, to go to secondary or primary resources.

That the students in your cited report did not see fit to do so - yes, dreadful.

As long as fame and money are our gods, the philosopher is a comic figure, a cartoon. — softwhere

But are those in fact our gods? They're more the gilding of a god dauntingly out of reach. No matter how hoodwinked and hedon-hypnotized we are en masse, there is a fundamental craving in all of us for a peace-girding wisdom. It's what draws me to the Stoic pursuit of noble-mindedness and the Skeptic recipe for ataraxia.

In my mind it's crucial to draw a distinction between philosophy-as-position-making and philosophy-as-pursuit-of-wisdom. The former has nearly consumed the latter - no doubt the source of your dis-ease vis-a-vis the well-scoffed, cartoonesque abstractiphaster. There is nothing cartoonish about a sober devout pursuit of wisdom. Philosophy is banal insofar as it excludes it.

Wisdom and intellectual peace are still valuable and valued.

Well said. — softwhere

Thanks. I've been enjoying your posts. Welcome to the forum.

But... can critical thinking be taught?

Better yet to be well-informed. What is it that mathematicians, climate scientists, botanists and biologists actually say? — Banno

These days shifty academes - from what I understand - will fudge their research for a price. The pressure to publish has pushed a ton of bullshit into the scientific canon.

Those without the leisure to spend their days researching the research - the minutia of funding and the politics of such-and-such a scientific journal - had better be well-practiced and comfortable with a prudent suspension of judgment.

The notion of being well-informed has gotten almost inscrutably complex.

These days shifty academes - from what I understand - will fudge their research for a price. The pressure to publish has pushed a ton of bullshit into the scientific canon. — ZzzoneiroCosm

This is an ugly phenomenon indeed.

My point remains the same. Dogma is against critical thought because it doesn’t care about evidence. You’ve presented why you disagree with if you actually take the word for what it means. I doubt you do disagree. It seems you were just looking to ‘jab’ at me for no good reason.

Dogma simply isn’t the same as holding bias or psychological fixedness. When people only see the world as being explained via science that isn’t even ‘dogma’. That is ‘scientism’ - a term philosophers enjoy to use when they face scientific facts they don’t understand. — I like sushi

It seems to me that you guys are arguing about dogma, but strictly speaking you don't hold exactly equivalent definitions of what is dogma. Kind of like saying, "my definition of 'dogma'" is correct. As if it is debating ownership of the concept. When both positions have merit.

"All our hypotheses are conjectures, and anybody is free to offer
conjectures—even conjectures that may appear quite silly to the
majority of us. Only thus can we make way for bold, unconventional, new ideas"

Seems to illustrate the tension between the accepted dogma and the radically new insight.

The notion of being well-informed has gotten almost inscrutably complex. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Indeed. We are forced to trust experts, but only an expert can distinguish between a genuine and fake expert. There is too much human knowledge. The headless machine can somehow run without anyone grasping the totality of its operation. Those comfortable in their place in the mechanism are perhaps even happy that being well-informed becomes more and more difficult. Some are served by the general passivity and skepticism. But knowing this doesn't instantly cure one of that same passive skepticism.

But are those in fact our gods? They're more the gilding of a god dauntingly out of reach. — ZzzoneiroCosm

I think I agree with you here. 'Fame' and 'money' are masks in a certain sense for some impossible enjoyment. In a narrow context, though, there is no time for serious thought, since time is money. Or rather time is understood in terms of exchange value.

To be sure, most of us offer a partial resistance to this. It's always the others who worship fame and money. We know better, but we must act as if we don't. This action is the 'truth' of the ideology, and others do our believing for us. Or that's one idea I've heard which has perhaps a grain of truth or value.

there is a fundamental craving in all of us for a peace-girding wisdom. It's what draws me to the Stoic pursuit of noble-mindedness and the Skeptic recipe for ataraxia. — ZzzoneiroCosm

I feel that draw too.

In my mind it's crucial to draw a distinction between philosophy-as-position-making and philosophy-as-pursuit-of-wisdom. The former has nearly consumed the latter - no doubt the source of your dis-ease vis-a-vis the well-scoffed, cartoonesque abstractiphaster. There is nothing cartoonish about a sober devout pursuit of wisdom. Philosophy is banal insofar as it excludes it.

Wisdom and intellectual peace are still valuable and valued. — ZzzoneiroCosm

I agree, and I think that's a valuable distinction. For me, philosophy as self-sculpting pursuit of wisdom is primary. At the same time, this seems connected to position-making, though not in the vain sense. Earnest position making is an attempt to further disclose reality or clarify existence.

Right now we are clarifying one of the difficulties of modern life, which is too knowledge with not enough credibility. I can ask myself sincerely: should I stop reading the news? Do I need to know about the sensational murder far away? Does a wise man read the news? At the moment I still read the news, wise or not.

Kind of like saying, "my definition of 'dogma'" is correct. — Pantagruel

Not really. I’m simply saying the other person is misusing the term to suit his purpose - the definition shows ways in which the context changes and I’ve made as explicit as I can what the context and definition is.

You may choose to use the term ‘banana’ to mean ‘sociopolitical’ and talk of the ‘banana influence in contemporary art’, I wouldn’t accept this as a reasonable thing to do as it is likely to cause confusion.

This all stems from my statement about ‘scientists’ being happy about being wrong whilst more ‘religious’ types are dogmatic - as in ‘dogma’ (where evidence is seen as of no value). And if we’re to talk about a ‘paradigm’ would it be right to call religious doctrines ‘paradigms’? Are they models? I guess that would depend on how willing you are to think of the context of ‘model’ in this sense, which basically means something like an adjustable set of ideas - clearly not something we relate to religions as they have the ‘true word’ at their disposal rather than a ‘model’ of something approximating a ‘truth’ (using ‘truth’ in a broad sense here to mean reality).

To be fair this is true for almost everyone - if not everyone? Granted some are more prone than others, but it’s probably better to take note of who does this repeatedly and see if you can give them a gentle nudge in the right direction.

I’ve seen devans around for a few years here and there. They are willing to learn - not scared of making mistakes. That in and of itself is to be commended, and encouraged.

It’s good to see little groups of people having discussions across threads and feeling their way around. Some will float and some will sink.

Maybe this thread would’ve hit the mark if it focused on self-criticism more. It is important to know you don’t know. That way it seems there is some chance you’ll stumble across something useful and realise it is useful.

If you have a point with zero length, how many are there on a line segment length one? — Devans99

Each point corresponds to a specific real number. How many real numbers are there in the unit interval?

This all stems from my statement about ‘scientists’ being happy about being wrong — I like sushi

I would question whether "happy" is the appropriate description. In mathematics if I were to work trying to prove a theorem and then a colleague showed the theorem to be false, I would not be "happy" - rather disappointed but resigned to the acceptance of fact - and then cheer myself up by moving on to another project. :chin:

I was talking about experimental evidence - not something that exists in mathematics.

Even so the guy who solved Fermat’s theorem wasn’t exactly happy about solving it because it left him bereft of purpose.