But this fundamental difference, and the reality of change, denies the possibility of making the deductive conclusion that what has been in the past, will be in the future. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not saying, arguing, or suggesting in any way whatsoever that the future will necessarily resemble the past. If you think that, then... drum roll... you've misunderstood again!

A’) It can still be said is the epitome of speculation. While it is true such speculation can be unknowingly true, because it is speculation, at the time of speculation, that which is being said has equal opportunity of being unknowingly false. If the speculation rests right there, at merely being said, it is impossible to determine which it is.
B’) It is NOT a separate issue. Unknowingly true makes explicit the truth is NOT known as such. It’s right there in the language. The only possible way to prevent an unknown from being false is to KNOW it is impossible for it to be false and the only way for it to be impossible to be false is for it to be.......well....known to be true.
————————- — Mww

That's okay, it's not a problem for me anyway. We're talking about a truth that is unconfirmed by your standards, not necessarily an unknown truth. And I'm not merely speculating, I gave a reasonable argument in support of my claim.

This was just a digression.

That’s perfectly agreeable, but it is not what you said. — Mww

It relates to what I said and it's important to interpret what I said with that in mind. Given that it's the best explanation, that's a good reason for believing the related claim over alternatives. This is how lots of people reason. It's how lots of people arrive at beliefs. And before you think about being annoying by bringing up a fallacy about what's popular, that's not what I'm suggesting. I'm just pointing out that it's common, and suggesting that there's a reason for that.

If you doubt these kind of arguments, you'd need a good reason to do so. What's the good reason to doubt them? They work well. They don't need to be perfect. Do you think that they need to be perfect or something? That wouldn't seem reasonable.

To be is to be and that’s that, is what you said about rocks post-human. — Mww

I did say that, yes. But that's not all I said, is it? It's true, and I said it to emphasise the difference between my realist position and Berkeleyan idealism where to be is to be perceived.

Rocks before means rocks after, without regard to any other conditions. Period. That’s that. I didn’t recognize the reasonableness of the argument because the reasoning is irrational, insofar as no room is allowed for explanatory or logical alternatives. — Mww

My reasoning is not irrational, and that's not an accurate representation of my argument. I assumed the alternative and showed that it lead to absurdity. And you haven't refuted my argument. To do that, you'd need to show that at least one of the alternatives is superior in terms of what I've argued about realism, for example that it is of greater explanatory power, makes more sense, is more reasonable...

You haven't done that.

You admit to being a rational agent but deny your idealism. — Mww

You're funny. It's not "my" idealism. I reject idealism because it leads to absurdity. You know this already, or at least you should do.

There is no philosophy that allows that, except.......an extreme empiricist. — Mww

Incorrect.

So you could speculate about it and might even be unknowingly correct. We’ll just never know about it. — Mww

All this indicates is that you've set your standards too high. That's it. You might think that you're saying something more significant than that, but you're actually not.

If you think that I would need to actually be in the scenario, then that's where these problems of yours stem from.
— S

You ARE in it, however indirectly. — Mww

Oh my days. No. No I'm not. I'm simply not in it. It's a scenario where no one exists, so it's impossible that I'm in it. That's a clear contradiction. Thinking about a scenario is not being in a scenario. Not by any reasonable understanding of what that means. You're free to be unreasonable here of course, but don't expect me to be.

You might think that I'm missing the point here, but I'm not. I'm rejecting what you're asserting because it's unreasonable.

You can't say that there's someone in the thought experiment without violating the thought experiment. That would be like squeezing a lemon over a piece litmus paper in an experiment to find out whether litmus paper is acidic. You would have just ruined the experiment, and your findings would be worthless.

You can set a different thought experiment with someone in it, but then you'd be talking about a different experiment and not my own. I wouldn't really care about your thought experiment. I'd rightly assess it to be irrelevant.

Einstein’s thought experiment, just like yours, presupposes a third party observer, separate from the participants in the experiment. Because the experiment had to come from somewhere, the experiment requires an observer outside a world, seeing that world with no observers of its own. You, as the presupposed third party, then demand the missing observers make a determination about the perspective no longer inhabit, which is necessarily different than yours as the outside observer. Such requirement is irrational. — Mww

So, Einstein's experiment presupposes a perspective, does it? It presupposes an observer? That's nice. Therefore mine does too? Um, no. If his experiment does this, then good for him, but my thought experiment doesn't.

Saying anything that boils down to saying something like "A thought experiment requires someone to think it up" or "You can't think about something without thinking about something" is bloody obvious and beside the point.

This is one of idealism's most annoying errors. It's particularly annoying when the idealist just doesn't understand the error and persists in making it, erroneously believing that I'm the one making a mistake by implying a contradiction.

But there are rational agents. And we can speculate.
— S

Not in the experiment there aren’t; — Mww

I've explained that this is both a) obvious, and b) beside the point I'm making here. Given a) & b), you should stop pointing this out.

If you were to take everything that we've speculated to date, then how would you know that it contains not a shred of truth? How could you know that?
— S

I know speculation contains not a shred of truth iff I know the speculation has been proven false. — Mww

Okay, so you accept that there could be unconfirmed truths. There's that at least. And I take it you accept that it's unjustifiable for you to say that there aren't any? If not, then please explain how you could possibly know that.

What we know about rocks historically can pertain to what we think of rocks in the future, but how we came to our knowledge historically cannot obtain in the future. In one word...experience. Even if we don’t experience rocks historically, we experience the remnants of their existence and deduce factual, that is to say, non-contradictory, information therefrom. If we’re not around, we have no experience, hence no knowledge can be given from experience we don’t have. Claiming we don’t know enough to claim facts about the future is not an untenable position. — Mww

I see. So extreme empiricism fails in this regard. Of course, that's why it should be rejected. It's kind of funny that you don't seem to see that. You think you're arguing against me, but you're not, you're really arguing against yourself by showing that the assumptions of extreme empiricism lead to failures. If you can't rightly say that there'd be a rock, then you've fucked up. And given your assertions about experience in relation to this stuff, that seems to be where you're fucking up. Empiricism? Yes. Extreme empiricism? No.

realism has the lead in the poll for both Part 1 & Part 2, although it is tied with idealism in Part 2.
— S

Might wanna re-think that. — Mww

Nope. (And if you're being pedantic with my wording, quit it).

It’s not a matter of being popular; — Mww

Predictable. I hate it when people are predictably annoying like that. You don't need to point shit out that I never suggested, and am not stupid enough to suggest.

If you think, you’re a idealist of some kind, in some degree. — Mww

This just indicates that you're misusing the term by stretching the meaning beyond reason. Okie dokes then! You're free to do so, but I advise against it.

Idealism DOES explain how, and not at the expense of empiricism but in conjunction with it, and even if it is wrong, empiricism in and of itself as yet has no means to refute it.

Either get used to it, or convince yourself you think about the world as it actually is. — Mww

This is all bark and no bite. (And I warn you, if you act like a puppy, I might have an uncontrollable urge to give you a good kicking :lol: ). I dismiss it as unwarranted.

You still do not seem to be grasping the reality of the temporal aspect of the world. The world is changing from one moment to the next. If the world is "a certain way", then it can only be that way for a moment in time, and at the next moment it will be another way. Due to the nature of passing time, and possibility, how the world will be at the next moment is always uncertain. — Metaphysician Undercover

If it seems to you like I'm not grasping that, then you're completely misunderstanding. (Big surprise). You're preaching to the choir there.

So if the world was a certain way in the last moment, and how it will be in the next moment is uncertain, then at the present it is something between being in a certain way, and being in an uncertain way, or both, or some such thing. — Metaphysician Undercover

If this were coming from anyone else, I would think that they were playing a joke on me. You do realise that I was using "certain" there only to mean "particular"? The world is always a particular way at any given time. No amount of sophism is going to change that. It wouldn't even make sense to say that at a given time, the world is not a particular way, but only half-way between being a particular way.

However, this is unacceptable according to the law of excluded middle. So to avoid this problem we ought not even talk about "the world" as if "it is of certain ways". Such talk only creates a situation in which the fundamental laws of logic are violated. — Metaphysician Undercover

This isn't the case. It only indicates that you're bad at logic. You'd just be wasting your time making irrelevant arguments again, which seems to be your thing. I really, really don't want to go through that torture with you again. Can't you demonstrate that your misunderstanding of my argument leads to contradiction elsewhere?

A’) Consider the rest of what I said: speculate from knowledge vs speculate from belief. We know from the past what it’s like out there without humans, so speculation about the future without humans can be reasonable. Simple: there will be a whole lot more buildings and a whole lot less forest. — Mww

So you agree that it's reasonable to believe that there would be a rock, but you don't agree that we know this? If so, I think this is because you set the bar higher than I do for knowledge, and I think that you don't need to do so. It's reasonable to say that we know that there would be a rock. Knowledge doesn't require certainty or whatever super strict criteria you're setting. You're basically creating problems for yourself. TheMadFool was doing the same thing earlier.

I don't know why yourself and others don't think about this more practically, in terms of how we speak about knowledge, and what criteria work best in representing how we speak, and suchlike. The irony here is that you seemed to be trying to argue the merits of what's practical earlier, in a different context.

B’) All future thought, that is, thinking in the future, is indeed meaningless to us in the present, yes.
As I said, THAT I will think tomorrow, all else being equal, is most probable, but it is impossible to claim as true WHAT I will think tomorrow. — Mww

So it's not true that you'll think about what to have for dinner tomorrow, even if you interpret that statement in a practical way with implicit qualifications? Or you're merely saying that it's not true if you interpret it in a wrongheaded way that results in a falsehood? Which is it? The latter, I'm guessing.

I've had this same problem with @Moliere in the discussion on meta-ethics. Why interpret statements in a way that leads to falsehood? What's the point? That then clashes with how we think and speak. It results in an incongruity. Why create problems for yourself? Aren't we supposed to be solving them?

B.) To say an event will occur implies the negation is impossible. — Mww

That's not what I mean here. You know, there's a really easy solution to this: don't interpret it like that. Do you see that it's what you're doing that's the problem?

You can stipulate that you're going to use the word "rule" so that it necessarily isn't something that pertains to just one person, but that doesn't say much except announce to us how you're going to use a term. — Terrapin Station

It seems a bunch of us are in agreement that what Banno was saying there seems to amount to a triviality.

This seems to steer very close to a purely semantic discussion. Are purely private moral rules actually moral, or rules? Depends on your definitions. — Echarmion

Seems so to me as well.

It seems to me the decision making process is different as a purely psychological fact. Following a personal rule feels different internally. — Echarmion

I'd make what could potentially be more or less the same point, only worded differently. Perhaps a related point. The one influences what we do or don't do, the other just sort of happens accidentally. With one, I wilfully act in accordance with my rules, whereas with the other, I just act, and stuff happens, and if by mere accident, then I didn't mean it to. I mean not to kick puppies. I purposefully do not kick them. It's certainly no mere accident that I don't generally do this, except when I've lost my football. Let the play continue!

How does following one's own private rules differ from mere accident? — Banno

I don't not kick the puppy by mere accident. That's pretty darn absurd. I don't kick it because, in your lingo, I have a private rule. Why would you conclude, "It's a mere accident!"? :brow:

(Of course, my rule is not so private now I've told you about it).

A rule that is only understood by one person does not count as a rule. — Banno

That seems false or arbitrary. I don't get why it wouldn't count. Just because you don't want it to?

Now my guess is that this will become a discussion of the merits of the private language argument well before the end of the first page. That's not the point. Rather, if the private language argument is correct, is it compatible with an existential approach to morality? — Banno

That seems relatively insignificant if it's actually incorrect, though.

So, with 11 votes, realism has the lead in the poll for both Part 1 & Part 2, although it is tied with idealism in Part 2. So, realism is doing relatively well, but not quite as well as I expected. This might have to do with the "Other" option. I think that too many people have a tendency to vote "Other" when they probably don't need to. Some people might just not know, which is fair enough. In hindsight, maybe I should have included a "Don't know" option. But some people seem to have this tendency to think that they're somehow above the fray; that they are special and have a unique position which can't be categorised as either option, and is superior to both. I doubt that.

It is concerning that out of 11 people, there are so many idealists. Don't they realise that idealism is a load of bollocks? Why is it so popular (at least here, and judging by only a small and limited number of voters)?

When we use logic it is not the logic which is informing us, we are informing ourselves. So we use logic to find out about things, especially concerning things where we haven't been. — Metaphysician Undercover

Now this is very interesting indeed! You get it right with a tool like logic, but wrong with a tool like a ruler!

We use a ruler to inform ourselves. We use a ruler to find out about things. Especially things we haven't measured.

The world is such that it is of certain ways, and we use logic to find out these certain ways. A rock is a certain length, and we use a ruler to find out this certain length.

The world is such that it has rocks, and we use logic to find out that rocks don't just suddenly to be there when we look away or when we die. The rock is such that it is 10cm long, and we use a ruler to find this out.

We don't use a ruler to set or "determine" the length. That's absurd. I'm not giving it a length, I'm just measuring it to find out what the length is. It's 10cm long, and I find that out by going up to it, putting my ruler up against it, observing that from end to end it goes from 0cm to 10cm, and that's that. If it wasn't 10cm long, then I couldn't possibly find that out!

You confuse length with measured length. Length is how long it is. If it's 10cm long, then that's how long it is. That's its length. It doesn't require that someone has measured it. Measured length, on the other hand, obviously requires that it has been measured. This is a perfect example of what I meant earlier when I said that you were making a tautology which misses the point. I do not doubt for a second that the measured length of a thing requires that the thing, at some point, be measured.

Isn't it more absurd to call that statement absurd? — ZhouBoTong

Hurrah! Someone who gets the reasoning. :100:

Aren't you (any sort of strong idealism) just pointing out that we all might be living in The Matrix (or any other related extreme)? — ZhouBoTong

I can accept these sort of possibilities. I never denied them. I don't think that they're a real problem.

But it cannot be said it is true that any particular something will happen without reasoning from induction, which is insufficient causality for knowledge, or, merely speculating, which has no claim to knowledge at all. — Mww

Are you purposefully ignoring me now? Can we be friends again? I'm sorry! :cry:

Even if that were so, it would only mean that it cannot knowingly be said to be true. It can still be said, and unknowingly be true.

There's an issue about what makes something knowledge, and what's reasonable. But there's a separate issue about what is or isn't true. And these issues seem to be getting a little muddled.

So, you think that I don't know that there wouldn't be a rock, and you think that I'm not being reasonable to believe that there would be a rock, rather than the alternative of there being no rock, even though the alternative leads to absurdity of a sort? If believing that there would be no rock is absurd, and believing that there would be a rock is the best explanation, then why shouldn't I believe that there would be a rock? Why wouldn't that be what's reasonable to believe? Just because the best explanation isn't absolutely guaranteed to be 100% correct, that's no reason not to believe it. If that were the case, then we wouldn't believe anything, which isn't even possible. Not everything is mere habit. Some of what we do and what we believe is reasonable.

But if there are no rational agents (S's hypothetical) then no real objects?
— ZhouBoTong

Who knows? Without rational agents, whose left to say anything about anything? — Mww

I know. I know enough to know. I'm a rational agent.

If you think that I would need to actually be in the scenario, then that's where these problems of yours stem from.

...with absolute certainty... — Mww

:roll:

if there are no rational agents then we can't even begin to speculate on anything?
— ZhouBoTong

Yep. Notice the lack of philosobabble on my part. Pretty cool, ain’t I? — Mww

But there are rational agents. And we can speculate. And even if there were no rational agents, we could still speculate. And what we speculate can be true whether we're rational agents or otherwise. If you were to take everything that we've speculated to date, then how would you know that it contains not a shred of truth? How could you know that?

Of course, there would be no rational agents in the scenario. There would be no one at all in the scenario. That's extremely obvious. But that doesn't matter.

Incorrect. I explained the difference in the text that followed what you quoted from me above. You left out that part.
.
I refer you to that part of my post. …the part that spoke of why we usually know what someone means, but why the terms “Real”, “Exist” and “There is” are different in that regard. — Michael Ossipoff

You said that we usually know what people mean when they use terms in context. I used terms in context. Therefore, what I meant is something which is usually understood. You're either an exception to your own rule or you're just pretending.

This discussion is testament to the understanding of what I asked. Most, if not all, other people understood what I meant. That's why we're having a discussion about it, instead of everyone just responding like, "What? I have no idea what you just asked", as though I was speaking in my own made up gibberish.

Look at how many people voted in the poll. Would you vote in a poll when you had no idea what it was asking?

You really need to spend a bit more time checking what you’ve written before you post it.

Yes, you asked if there would be that rock.

Does it occur to you that your question about “Would there be…” used the interrogative conditional form of “There is…”? — Michael Ossipoff

And...? What's this supposed problem you're having with understanding what I asked? Why shouldn't I believe that you're feigning ignorance, when that's what the evidence suggests?

Why shouldn't I believe that you're just dancing around the real issue about whether or not there would be a rock?

:lol:

It doesn’t follow that because there’s a significant portion of the forum membership that possess a particular quality that they should be catered to, and it also doesn’t follow that this isn’t the place for those lacking this [low level] quality. The assertion that it does implies that the forum is directed according to the apparent needs of members with shared characteristics that reach a significant size. That’s not the case, from what I’ve observed. For example, not long ago this topic (The Shoutbox) was deliberately taken off the list of topics displayed on the home page, an unpopular move, in essentially an effort to raise the quality of philosophical postings. Kinda like taking the ketchup off the dinner table and putting in the pantry because it's lowbrow and unhealthy. — praxis

No, it's more like you having the bright idea of removing all of the wet floor signs when the floor has yet to dry, in the meeting place for an academic club open to anyone one at all, even those with no qualifications at all. And you're okay with some people falling over and hurting themselves, because the upper class is of the opinion that wet floor signs look tacky. And because more members of the upper class are likely to have been to university, you are of the opinion that it's best to pander to them, even if it means a greater risk of injury to the lower classes in particular, who have less likely been to university. For you, putting off snobby intellectuals is more of a concern than people injuring themselves.

My argument is not the straw man that you addressed. It's not that because there’s a significant portion of the forum membership that possess a particular quality, they should therefore be catered to. That obviously has one or more missing premises. The missing premise would be something along the lines that, regarding the actions we take for the forum itself, we should work with the aim of being helpful and we should work towards minimising the occurrence of illogic, especially when the required helpful action is simple and easy, and it wouldn't make a significant difference in how the front page looks, and although it might put some people off, these people would be of a bad, snobbish attitude, and they would have the wrong priorities, and this site would very likely continue to attract those higher levels you have in mind who do not have that bad attitude and probably think nothing of a little sticky note about logic on a philosophy forum.

When I said that this isn't the place for them, I meant that this isn't the best place for people who want an elitist club, rather than a club for all with a conscious effort to raise up those with lesser abilities.

Your latest post is exactly what I’ve been saying about your thought experiment since pg 5. You demand acceptance the rock will still exist, but here you merely agree the pencil will fall to the floor because there’s no good reason for it not to. What’s the difference between you saying, “will the pencil drop to the floor? We don’t know for sure....”, and me saying, “will the rock still exist? I don’t know for sure....”. You say it, it's correct; I say it, it’s extreme empiricism. — Mww

What's the key point that I've been saying about surety, otherwise known as certainty? For what feels like the zillionth time, we don't need certainty to obtain knowledge. Why isn't this sinking in? If it is, then what's the problem? That we don't know for sure is not relevant in the context where I'm not arguing that we know for sure, I'm just arguing that we know. We know that the rock would fall. I've only brought up not knowing for sure in juxtaposition to knowing, and my point remains that the former is comparatively insignificant.

I deleted my comment on your big long comment when I saw your comment to Janus. Homie don’ play no schoolyard gangsta games, first of all, plus you’ve completely misunderstood my entire argumentative domain. Where I’m coming from, in case you missed that too.

Here’s how this is going to play out. You’ll say all sorts of mean nasty ugly stuff about me and my pathetic inability to use reason and logic correctly, and I’ll just sit here and think.....oh. Ok. So be it. — Mww

Alright, alright. Fine. I'm sorry. Look, you're a much better person to have a discussion with than that undercover sophist who has been taking up so much of my time, but the more you reason like him, the less credible you seem to me, and the more annoyed I become. I want what you're saying to be reasonable and make sense, but if it seems like the opposite to me, then I get annoyed, and that seeps through. The more annoyed I get, the more hyperbolic and scathing my replies become. I'll try to restrain myself from making comments like that to or about you, and maybe try to tone it down a bit. But I get passionate because, from my perspective at least, you've made so much more sense elsewhere, yet here it seems like you've gone downhill fast.

Indeed. Which part of my post suggests that I disagree with that? — ZhouBoTong

I was just making a general point based on what you said. In hindsight, that wasn't very clear at all. I didn't mean you personally, but rather an impersonal "you": better said as "one" or "someone" or "a person".

I wasn't disagreeing with you as such, I was emphasising that we don't even need an "even if", given that it clearly isn't.

No, I didn’t say that. — Michael Ossipoff

If you want to get technical, then yes, you didn't say that. It was logically implied when you said, "defining our terms is necessary". You even quoted yourself saying that.

That sentence, along with this one, with the exception of punctuation marks, is composed entirely of terms. Yet I haven't defined these terms I'm using, and nor do I need to, because you obviously understand what I'm saying. It would be a hilarious contradiction if you replied with, "No I don't". That would be reminiscent of a Monty Python sketch.

“Exist”, “There is”, and “Real”, without context, intended in some absolute way, are meaningless sounds with which philosophers have befuddled themselves for a long time. — Michael Ossipoff

That is completely beside the point, because that's obviously not what I've done. I didn't just say, "Exist" or "There is" or "Real". I asked if there would be a rock in the situation that I described. You know what I asked. This is getting more and more ridiculous.

But no one here has been able to answer regarding by what they mean by those words, used in the absolute sense with no specified context. — Michael Ossipoff

Right, and they shouldn't do, as that's a challenge that has no relevance in the context I set for this discussion.

You aren’t hearing me. — Mww

Yes, I am. I am hearing your irrelevant nonsense loud and clear. When I asked, "What?", that wasn't because I didn't hear you, it's because you weren't making sense.

You said of blue, the measurable properties x and y means it’s blue. That doesn’t make any sense at all to a guy who claims a thing is blue for no other reason whatsoever than he sees it as blue. — Mww

I have no reason to care about that. It is not of any relevance.

I see an object as blue therefore that means it is a blue object no matter it’s properties. — Mww

No, it just means that you see an object as blue. You're of course free to go by some silly unwarranted premise which leads to the above, but I reject it, and for good reason.

How could what I see as blue mean it’s red? — Mww

It's red if it has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres, and it's as simple as that. If you're seeing red as blue, then it must be an optical illusion or it must be that something is wrong with your perceptual system.

Hence, while discoverable properties describe something, such discovery does not always lend itself to meaning. — Mww

You mean that people commonly use colour words to describe the colour which they see something? Yes. So what? I'm not using it in that sense here, and for good reason. Your point about common usage is trivial and misses the point.

What you’re saying by measurable properties x and y means it is blue, is actually x and y are the conditions under which some part of the visual spectrum of EMR must be identified as the same as the sensation of “blue” that is perceived by humans. — Mww

No, that's what you're saying. I'm simply saying that something is blue if it has the required properties. And I've told you the required properties already.

That spectrum has the exact same conditions for blue but may not identify as blue to an animal lacking the similar receptor system as the human animal that labels that part of the visual spectrum “blue”. — Mww

Lol! That's completely and utterly irrelevant. Identifying as blue, and labeling "blue", do not make something blue, except in a stupid and trivial way. I could do that with the colour red, but that wouldn't make it blue, except in a stupid and trivial way. If I identify my cat as a grizzly bear, and label my cat a "grizzly bear", my cat doesn't actually become a grizzly bear. That's absolutely ridiculous. Yet it follows from your suggested logic.

That a deer might not identify blue as blue has no bearing whatsoever of what makes blue what it is, or whether something is blue.

Do you see that the subject of your proposition is “shape”? — Mww

Yes, I see that. Funnily enough, I have eyes. And a brain.

Funnily enough, I was talking about a shape. So, funnily enough, I used the word "shape". Funnily enough, if I had wanted to talk about something else, like a salamander, then I would have used a different word, like "salamander".

That makes explicit some arbitrary extension in space is necessarily presupposed in order for the conceptions in the predicate to be thereafter associated to something as a means to identity it. It follows if the arbitrary shape is constituted by four equal sides and four equal angles contained in those sides, THEN it is labeled “square”. It is not always necessary to actually quantify anything to perceive a square, insofar as natural knowledge evolution accepts the general conception of “square” without recourse to rulers, but there are still conditions where it is required in order for the label “square” to be at the negation of the possibility of all other shapes, i.e., construction trades, very great or very small distances, etc., or to falsify an optical illusion. — Mww

That is laughably and needlessly wordy and convoluted, and parts of it are simply wrong and illogical.

If there's a shape that has four equal sides and four equal angles, then it's a square. It's the shape that has those properties. And a shape is the form of an object or its external boundary, outline, or external surface, as opposed to other properties such as color, texture or material composition.

From this, it is clear that a necessary truth such that any extended shape with its own identifying consistently attributed constituents must be a square. A necessary truth needs no confirmation, it will be the case whether confirmed or not. An unconfirmed truth suggests a possibility of falsification, which requires a means of identity to apodectically resolve. — Mww

I was only talking about what it is that makes something a square because you seemed confused, and you seemed to have the wrong idea.

My argument about the unconfirmed truth that there would be a rock under the circumstances I've described stands.

It's obviously unconfirmed in the sense you seem to mean, because as things stand, we haven't all died, and even if we had, your sort of confirmation would seem to require someone there to confirm that the rock is there, despite everyone having died, which obviously wouldn't even be possible.

And it's obviously true given what we know, and given my reasonable argument.

Therefore, it's an unconfirmed truth.

(And can you please quit it with the opaque philosophy jargon. Can't you speak like a normal human being?)

The dropped pencil argument is straight out of Hume’s claim of epistemological knowledge given from mere habit or convention. — Mww

Would the pencil drop to the floor? We don't know for sure, but certainty isn't necessary. Could it rise to the ceiling instead? Yes. However, if we're reasonable, then what we must consider is whether the consequences of it not dropping to the floor would be more absurd than otherwise. If this alternative logically leads to seeming absurdity that can't be explained well or even at all, then it's not reasonable to believe the alternative. If the pencil dropping to the floor is the best prediction, and the best explanation of what would happen, given what we know, then it's reasonable to believe that that, all else being equal, would happen. You'd need a greater reason that something completely unexpected would happen instead, and certainly just because it could rise to the ceiling instead, that doesn't mean that it would, nor would it mean that we haven't the foggiest either way, nor would it mean that what we already know isn't enough to reasonably believe what would most likely happen, namely that it would drop to the floor.

And just to make the point for S, even if "unconfirmed truth" is a contradiction in terms... — ZhouBoTong

But it very clearly isn't. However, it will lead to contradiction for you if you do something dumb like interpreting it as saying "untrue truth" or by committing to the unjustifiable premise that what's unconfirmed isn't true.

"without an observer, nothing exists"
— ZhouBoTong

To that I simply would say: "how do you know; you haven't been there"? — Janus

It's funny when they make self-defeating claims like that.

This one is funny too:

No truth is unconfirmed... — Mww

Okay, so it's not the case that, as I'm walking home, unbeknownst to me, I have left my keys at work, unless and until that has been confirmed. I don't ever need to worry about that possibility, because I'll only ever have left them at work unless and until someone has confirmed that that's what I've done. It's not until someone finds my keys on my desk the next day that I had left them at work. It's not true that, after I had left work without my keys, I had left my keys at work, on my desk.

How very peculiar. Or rather, how very ridiculous. And there are innumerable additional examples, just as absurd, if not more so. How about this:

Without confirmation, it isn't true that Earth spins on an axis. Cavemen didn't have confirmation of this truth. So it wasn't true at that time. But if it wasn't true at that time, then how are we even here right now? If the Earth didn't spin on an axis for all that time until it was confirmed, then it couldn't have been confirmed, because everyone alive at that time would've died long before then, and we would've never been born. That's definitely absurd.

This is where extreme empiricism leads, and this is why it should be rejected. It's extremely unreasonable. These people themselves have helped demonstrate just how unreasonable it is, by saying such things without realising the logical consequences of what they say.

Do you know what non-sequitur means, or do you just use any words in any random way that pleases you? A simple statement of observation cannot be a non-sequitur, because non-sequitur refers to a conclusion drawn from previous statements. If you think that my observation is false, then say so, and explain why. But why use fancy words which you don't even know the meaning of? — Metaphysician Undercover

Your question was clearly loaded. The question, "You just now realized that my objection to your thought experiment is based in semantics?", clearly suggests that that's what you think. But it doesn't logically follow from what I actually said. It was a dumb question. Either illogical or just a stupid assumption. Take your pick, it's lose-lose.

On the contrary, it would be an accurate intuition or assessment, assuming the sign was current and relevant. Prominently publishing ‘basics’ to a group indicates a need for basic instructions, and that indicates that a significant portion of the group has trouble with the basics. In the case of someone looking for high level, it’s entirely reasonable to be discouraged by such a sign. — praxis

This place isn't for them, then. We have a significant number of low levels here. (N.b. a significant number doesn't necessarily equate to most, and it doesn't in this case. It's a number of significance by my assessment).

You have GOT to be the WORST epistemological realist EVER!!! — Mww

:roll:

Even saying if you knew enough is catastrophically inept, because it raises the question....how much is enough. If you knew x and y and from those predicted z, z remains no more than reasonable expectation until some other condition is satisfied, as in, experiment or accident. — Mww

No, you're catastrophically inept if you can't recognise the reasonableness in my argument that rocks would exist, which is an unconfirmed truth. Are you some sort of logical positivist or something? Some buffoon who thinks something along the lines that all knowledge requires verification? You do realise that logical positivism has been refuted long ago, and is now widely recognised as untenable? I produced a reduction to the absurd to show why we should believe that the rock would exist, in spite of the lack of verification. The explanatory power is superior to alternative positions. Alternative positions fail massively to make sense of these scenarios.

A caveman sees green grass and predicts it is fresh, but only because he has seen brown grass that deer never eat. Just because he knows the grass is green at night, does not allow him to predict the sun is partly responsible for fresh grass. — Mww

This is a false analogy to the situation with the rock, because the caveman might not know enough to make that prediction at all, let alone reasonably, whereas I can and do.

Faraday might have the unconfirmed hypothetical for electric lines, but without the rational appeal to a very specific experiment, he would have had no reason to suppose them. And even then, he got it wrong by requiring a medium. — Mww

Jesus, not your fallacy of irrelevance about certainty again. That's what your last sentence seems to be getting at. Am I suggesting that it's impossible that I could be wrong? In other words, am I suggesting that I have absolute certainty regarding my claim? No. I am a fallibilist.

Now, you seem to be so stuck in your extreme empiricism that you're forgetting about reason and logic. I'm not suggesting that we can perform an experiment, I'm saying that that's not necessary. It's necessary for confirmation, but it's not necessary for reasonable belief.

Yeah, so what? — Mww

So that refutes your claim! :rofl:

That’s what every theoretical physicist says, but I betcha a Benjamin he never calls it a “truth” before it is proven to be one. — Mww

I don't care. Even theoretical physicists can be unreasonable. There's a difference between doing science and doing philosophy, you know. Maybe they don't say that if they're doing science.

After the fact he can say such and such is true, thus beforehand it was an unconfirmed truth, which is exactly the opposite of what you say. — Mww

What? Um, no. That's not the opposite of what I'm saying. I'm saying that, before confirmation, it's an unconfirmed truth. That's obviously what I'm saying.

Unconfirmed truth is a contradiction in terms. — Mww

No it isn't. If you're interpreting it that way, then you're interpreting it wrong. Unconfirmed truths make sense and are reasonable and are a matter of common sense. This can be demonstrated with examples.

If unconfirmed truths are incompatible with your position, then that's your problem as far as I'm concerned.

No truth is unconfirmed... — Mww

Good luck trying to justify that assertion! How could you??

...and that which is either rationally or empirically unconfirmed cannot be a truth. — Mww

The basis for believing these sort of propositions can, in some cases, be reasonable, and therefore justified. That's the case with the rock that would exist. And I've demonstrated that with my argument.

That which is true now and will be under congruent circumstance is a necessary truth empirically, or a logical truth rationally. Substantiated hypotheticals can lead to reasonable predictions, but truths absolutely must meet the criteria of knowledge. — Mww

That's absurd. All truths must be known? I don't think so. Knowledge criteria is for knowledge, and truth criteria is for truth. Knowledge and truth are two different things, obviously. It makes no sense to say that they have the same criteria. You are going by false premises, mate. That's why you are reaching absurd conclusions and that's why you're running into problems with my position which accords better with what's sensible to believe.

I didn’t say “determine”; I said determinable. Under certain conditions there are things completely undeterminable, and those conditions have to do with human inability. — Mww

I know what you said. It's the same with all of the variations of "determine", such as "determinable". That's what I meant. It's completely the wrong term. The right term is "discover", and all of the variations of "discover", such as "discoverable".

I've set out my usage. My usage makes way more sense.

This discussion was about realism and possible counter-arguments with respect to it. Knowledge and truth may enter into it but they are qualifiers for what they are. You brought truth here, apparently without understanding what it is. — Mww

That doesn't say anything at all really. I know what the topic is, thanks. I created this discussion.

And I don't care about your unsubstantiated opinions. Vague and unsupported remarks like those in the quote above can simply be dismissed.

A worthy epistemological realist would be quick to realize the limited practical purpose is the sole paradigm from which he can work. The total of practical exercise is indeed very far larger than the arena available to a human, but the totality is quite irrelevant. Hell, we haven’t even got ourselves off this planet yet. But the deeper you go into realism the more you need some kind of idealism, because you’re bound by reason itself to reduce to conditions not met with realism alone. — Mww

Worthy? Lol. Your value judgement is subjective, and I don't share it.

The above quote is completely unsubstantiated. I stand by my pointing out the irrelevance of what's practical, and I stand by my pointing out the clear fact that I'm not an idealist.

What? You just now realized that my objection to your thought experiment is based in semantics? — Metaphysician Undercover

Oh look, a non sequitur.

@praxis

Small signs or impressions often work unconsciously and therefore may not employ a potential members critical thinking skills.

The point is that if you go somewhere looking for high level whatever and at the entrance you see instructions on the basics, you may get the impression that you've arrived at the wrong location. Conversely, if you're looking for low level whatever and at the entrance you see instructions on the basics, you might get the impression that you've arrived at the right location.

But we are open to all, including the low levels, and the low levels need guidance. If you're a high level who lets something as trivial as "signs" to help low levels put you off, then you're not that much of a high level. If you're looking for a club who only lets in elites, then this isn't it.

This is a red-herring because the garbage of it being fallacious is unrelated to its truth claim. — TheWillowOfDarkness

No. You're missing the point. People like myself and @Janus understand how the logic words. We understand that producing a fallacious argument in support of a claim doesn't mean that that claim is not true. You don't need to explain this to us. You shouldn't assume that we don't understand this.

They commit the fallacy in trying to demonstrate the supposed truth to the claim. That's what we're trying to find out: whether there's a good enough reason to believe that the claim is true. If I can't reasonably find one, which would be the charitable assumption in this situation, then I pass it over to you.

That's not really doubt.

"Reasonable doubt" is actually an evidence/knowledge based claim. If we take the concept of "reasonable doubt" in law, for example, it is actually based on the expectation that if someone performed a crime, it amounts to empirical states which we can observe and investigate. It actually rejects someone committed a crime on the basis we know empirical states we would expect from the crime haven't occurred. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Sure, there'd be two sides to the argument. This isn't a one sided thing. But I may have already gone over my side, leaving the problem of trying to figure out whether this claim of the other person has anything going for it. Left to my own devices, there would be little chance of acheiving a different outcome. I don'taccept it, and I have my reasons. I've gone through that process and reached a conclusion. But I could be wrong, hence giving an opportunity for the other person to make their case. You expect me to argue against myself? Kind of an odd take. Anyway, this is where you miss the importance of the burden of proof.

If I've done all that, which is to take a reasonable approach, and then they produce a fallacious argument in reply, then the other reasonable thing to do is as I've described.

I just don't think you're seeing what reasonable behaviour looks like in these situations. Or you're just kind of being a contrarian for the sake of it. Maybe you have an axe to grind, a chip on your shoulder. Logic bad, fallacies good. Yeah, right... :brow:

No! It could all be valuable philosophical work. Of course you could still do this work in an obnoxious, childish, patronizing, overbearing, stupid, middlebrow and all the rest of it" way, but then the good part of your work might be wasted. The "obnoxious, etc, etc......" is more a matter of style than substance. — Janus

Obnoxious, childish, patronizing, overbearing, middlebrow? Sure, whatever. I'm not everyone's cup of tea. But stupid? Never! :grin:

Doubt is the problem, it's no reason for taking any position. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Reasonable doubt. Not just doubt for doubt's sake. :roll:

I always follow the herd so I disagree too. — praxis

I'm a contrarian, so I disagree with your disagreement.

Prominently pinning the basics may give the impression that this forum is for people who need to be shown the basics and not for people who know the basics (and could offer better and more interesting content), signaling to them that they should go elsewhere. — praxis

Okay, then on that note, let's unpin the guidelines. After all, it may give the impression that this forum is for people who need to be shown the basics and not for people who know the basics (and can behave in an appropriate manner without having to be guided) signaling to them that they should go elsewhere.

Are you a brick wall? Because I feel like I'm talking to one.

I began with my doubt of their claim, which your advice seems to forget. That suggests that I already have a reason not to accept their claim. Hence I asked for one, and that resulted in them committing a fallacy. Given the aforementioned, why would it be wrong of me to identify the fallacy, explain why it is a fallacy, and urge them to understand that they need to try again in a different way?

Why would all of those frankly ludicrous accusations (which I admittedly took out of context) apply to me in that scenario, as you've just suggested by answering with a "Yes"?

The point at stake isn't whether they've reasoned perfectly, it's whether they understand what is true. You have a responsibility to care what is true, to reject their truth claim for good reason, rather than just because their argument failed to follow some rules. You can't just be lazy and reject their claim is true because they haven't followed a particular rule of logical inference.

(this also means Burden Of Proof is out as an objection, as someone failing to present evidence or show a truth in their argument doesn't actually give us a reason to think their claim is false). — TheWillowOfDarkness

You seem quite oblivious and you don't make much sense. Sorry.

So, let me see if I've got this straight. If I'm in a discussion with someone, and they make a claim which I doubt, and I ask them if they can present an argument in support of this claim, and they say yes, and then they present a fallacious argument, then it is wrong of me to identify the fallacy, explain why it is a fallacy, and urge them to understand that they need to try again in a different way? That's not philosophically interesting, I'm wrangling over something I shouldn't be, I'm overlooking gems, I'm not trying to ascertain whether there's any truth to their claim, I'm being obnoxious, childish, patronising, overbearing, stupid, middlebrow, and all the rest of it?

Unlikely, but that's my point. At the point at which you're wrangling over fallacies, you haven't even made it out of the gate of interesting. — StreetlightX

I'm not overly concerned about what side of your imaginary gate you think I'm on. This imaginary gate of yours is merely a manifestation of your inflated opinion.

Never mind. I can't be bothered to untangle that.

Why not just sticky this thread. Everyone should bear witness to the fact that Baden is "right". — Harry Hindu

He's only right because I agree him and wrong otherwise. It's all about me, really. Everyone should bear witness to me, not him. Me, me, me, me, me, me, me...

Yes, defining our terms is necessary. Without that, philosophy becomes meaningless, muddled gibberish.

If you can’t define it, then you don’t know its meaning, and that supports my claim that it doesn’t have one. — Michael Ossipoff

So until I define every term in this sentence, you have no idea what I'm saying. I might as well just be banging my head on the keyboard.

Ghjnnbvcgjkk vggjj ghnnmmnfvb

Yeah, that's real convincing.

What you’re saying (what you’re asking in your OP question) is meaningless.

…and, not having a meaning, it also doesn’t have an understandable meaning. — Michael Ossipoff

Yet almost everyone else understood it. How peculiar.

You already corrected him. And I see what you did there.