Disregarding the fact that I do not have a degree in English, its history, or linguistics in general, using a conditional like “wouldn’t be” here does tell me that “you wouldn’t be doing this, but you are.” Compare this to your rephrased comment:
Which I said was fine. Why is it fine? Because there is no circular reference to spoken or unspoken assumptions. As to whether or not it is true, valid, or green I couldn’t care less. It has never been my point to say: “Descartes is a silly man and says false things.”[sup]†[/sup]
Assumption 1 [unspoken]: thoughts require a thinker [to exist]. Observation 1 [spoken]: I observed a thought. Conclusion 1 [spoken]: I exist.
The circle is closed. Why? Examine “observation 1”. If thoughts require a thinker, wouldn’t observations require an observer?
Restated: Assumption 1 [unspoken]: thoughts require a thinker [to exist]. Assumption 2 [unspoken]: observations require an observer [to exist]. Observation 1 [spoken]: I observed a thought.
Comment: by appealing to an observation, we have brought in an observer. Specifically, an observer “I”. Conclusion 1 [spoken]: I exist.
Which we already “knew”. But then we can see that the side-track with “thinking” is really superfluous. We can then re-restate the “proof” as follows:
Assumption 1[sub]A[/sub]: observations require an observer [to exist]. Observation: I observed [content irrelevant]. Conclusion 1[sub]A[/sub]: I exist.
Questions:
Is the first assumption (thoughts require a thinker) motivated, self-evident, or only a remnant of our own grammar “to think”? [a link in the circle]
1a) Most importantly, is this assumption outside the ability to doubt? [a crack in the foundation]
Do observations require an observer? See question (1). [a link in the circle]
2a) Most importantly, is this assumption outside the ability to doubt? [a crack in the foundation]
Is there only implication involved, or is it a stronger relationship that allows “possessive” concepts to be used to say that “these are my [thoughts, observations, seemings, etc.]”? [uncovering other possible assumptions that are hidden]
Where did the symbol/referent “I” come from? Did it come from the fact that we had disregarded everything but “I” up to this point? (and did we really disregard all that?) [uncovering other possible assumptions that are hidden]
[reiterating Spiritus’s questions] How do I know that I ask the question “do I exist?”
[reiterating Spiritus;s follow-up to (5)]: How do the assumptions necessary to answer [that] impact our eventual conclusion “I exist”?
†[sub]For clarity, my own opinions are that
Descartes begged the question through a circular reference which makes the demonstration not stunning; and,
given the perspective of other philosophers (perhaps even his contemporaries and those that came before him), Descartes stopped doubting at a point where he could have gone on; and,
I could not commit myself to rationalism even before I read Descartes, so perhaps my perspective also has unspoken assumptions to it. That is likely another debate.
Only (1) is particularly salient to the debate.[/sub]
Intent? If you cannot read a post well enough to see a definition which is clearly bolded and set apart from the rest of the text, then you should refrain from stating that no definition has been offered. It really isn’t that difficult a concept.
Thank you for providing such a clear example. The facts of this dispute have been established unambiguously. I did not say that ~A disproved A -> B. It is not an ambiguous point, and it has been explicated in excruciating detail.
Yet here you are addressing the issue as if it were somehow in doubt. As if there were even the slightest chance that I did indeed say what you claimed. This is not the tactic of an honest man.
No. This would be another lie on your part.
Whether you said ~A disproves A -> B as I intimated depends entirely upon how one uses the word “disprove” in this context. We have both clearly presented our usage, and they are at odds. Again, there is no disputation of these facts. Under my usage of disprove, you made the claim. Under your usage, you did not. So I have no trouble acknowleging that the intimation on my part was based entirely upon a disagreement in usage and that you did not intend to offer ~A as a disproof for A -> B.
You see, I don’t think a message board dispute with a clown is sufficiently important to compromise my integrity. I have no need to dissemble and distract in order to avoid acknowledging such a simple misunderstanding.
In fact, I even offered you the opportunity to defend your usage of “disprove” as more accepted than my own. Had you been able to do so, I would have no problem stating unambiguously that my statements regarding “disproof of Descartes” were incorrect.
Of course, you did not choose to present cites to support your usage. We are all left to specualte upon whether that means you didn’t bother trying; didn’t succeed in finding any from the myriad of sebsites devoted to issues of logic, philosophy, and mathematics; or found many but chose to keep them your own little secret.
I know which of those options I find most likely.
This is simply incorrect. Unsoundness means that the result cannot be accepted in the given context. It does not mean that nothing has been proved.
[ul][li]we both offered dictionary definitions (mine at least contained the word invalid).[/li][li]One of us acknowledged that there appears to be no unambiguous standard of usage in the contexts of logic and philosophy. [/li][li]One of us offered specific citations from th efield(s) in order to support his usage[/li][li]And one of us is now taking refuge in the claim that he just can’t be bothered to read the posts to which he responds.[/li][/ul]
Another of your favorite tactics: after posting your own rants, insults, and insinuations in this thread you pretend to be a wounded party who wants only to engage in an honest philosophical discussion. You also pretend that my only remarks in this thread have been directed at side disputes and hijacks.
Oh, there have been plenty of those, I admit. But there have also been posts which addressed your errors in:
[ul][li]Arguing that implication was a meaningful operator in a disconnected instant of perception.[/li][li]Arguing that it is standard for logical arguments to presume that they take place in a disconnected instant.[/li][li]Arguing that in order to find fault with Descartes’ presentation one has to prove ‘non cogito’[/li][li]Arguing that Descartes’ method provides a firm epistemological foundation from which to conclude ‘sum’[/ul][/li]It just so happens that the posts to which you respond most vehemently are those in which I call attention to your lack of intellectual integrity.
I have no interest in discrediting Descartes, though I find this particular argument of his to be unimpressive. It is your own credibility that I have found lacking, for reasons which are eminently clear in this thread.
Grrr, now my failure to adequately preview will be definitive proof that anything I say is false. Now we know! The smilies said it!!!
:o Aaaugh! It’s sucking my brain!!
erislover
Out of deference to Ramanujan, I’ll keep it simple and specific.
Questions:
Is the first assumption (thoughts require a thinker) motivated, self-evident, or only a remnant of our own grammar “to think”?
Grammar? Definition. If you don’t like it, don’t use the word.
1a) Most importantly, is this assumption outside the ability to doubt?
Certainly. Definition.
Do observations require an observer?
Certainly. Definition. If you don’t like it, don’t use the word.
2a) Most importantly, is this assumption outside the ability to doubt?
Certainly. Definition.
Is there only implication involved, or is it a stronger relationship that allows “possessive” concepts to be used to say that “these are my [thoughts, observations, seemings, etc.]”?
Hmm? Definitions are pretty strong. If you don’t like ‘posessives’, don’t use language which is possessional by definition.
Where did the symbol/referent “I” come from? Did it come from the fact that we had disregarded everything but “I” up to this point? (and did we really disregard all that?)
It came from “I think”. It ended up in “I am.” It’s strength and meaning in the “I am” is exactly the same as it is in the “I think.”
Which brings us to the heart of the matter. Be careful about attibuting notions to S.M., though. He might call you a famous person. :eek:
How do I know that I ask the question “do I exist?” [6 just asks wether 5 begs the question.]
And now, I’d like to say, g’night. It’s past midnight here. I’ll get back to you later. (What, you wanted me to toss off a quick answer to the heart of the argument? 'fraid not. I’ll be back later, when it’s earlier. Seeya.
How fascinatingly pathetic. Still, I’ve always liked clowns with a dark side.
Does that look familiar?
Here’s a hint. It appears immediately after the single sentence that you quoted in your response.
Yes. You are a liar. You post deliberate (and clumsy) attempts to deceive.
This latest offering is truly wonderful, by the way. Out of a long post of mine you manage to select a single sentence and respond in a way that embodies all of those elements of your oeuvre that set you apart as a poster.
[ol][li]Utter failure of reading comprehension[/li][li]With a subtext that perhaps you simply don’t read what you respond to at all, yet somehow manage to select elements randomly to great comic effect [/li][li]Transparent attempt at deception[/li][li]With a subtext that a lie so clumsily told fairly begs to be read as meta-content[/li][li]A striking defensiveness that speaks to concern for ego[/li][li]With a subtext that 1,2,3 & 4 combine to guarantee that the caricature you project undermines any hope for credence or respect[/ol][/li]Truly, sir, you are an artist. But not in a Picasso kind of way, more of a “painter of light” way (with a subtext of “elephant spraying watercolors through his trunk”).
You’re getting predictable, S.M. I predicted you, including my, uh, ‘subtext’ that you wouldn’t back up your ‘claim’. If I’m a liar, then I must have told a lie. If it’s not “S.M. said that ~A disproves A -> B” (or whatever you want to call it now), then what is it?
I was wrong earlier; you are starting to get amusing. Though I stll think that these “personal attacks” (though in your last post, you forgot to actually accuse me of anything) belong elsewhere than smack in the middle of a discussion on Descartes.
Just because you are unable to read with comprehension does not mean that everyone else suffers from the same infirmity. the answers to your questions have already been provided. I will not bore others by requoting yet more words which can be seen on this very page of the thread.
You got caugt, begbert2. Initially you defended your misstatement by claiming an absurd misreading of my posts. No retraction, of course, just the self-diagnosis that you cannot understand clearly written English. Now you seem determined to attempt obfuscation by repetition. The hole only gets deeper.
Yes, you lied when I claimed that I said “~A disproves A -> B”.
You compound that attempt to deceive by coninually referencing the issue as if there were any ambiguity in what I posted or in your mirespresentation of same.
You further attempt to decieve when you pretend that I have not acknowledged the ambiguity caused by our different readings of “disprove”
Now you present nother lie by pretending that I have not clearly identified “S.M. said that ~A disproves A -> B” as the initial lie upon which you were called.
Finally, all in one post you add the lie that I have not “backed up my claim”.
As added spice you offer the new claim that you “predicted” that I would not back up my charge. Jonathon Edward would be proud.
For the record, it has been ruled acceptable in Great Debates to make the observation that a poster is a liar. However much you might wish discussions of your deceit to be absent from the threads in which you actually practice deceit, your wish is supported by no compelling authority.
You are a liar.
Deal with it. The rest of us, unfortunately, have to deal with it too.
Firstly, what is meant by “doubt”? It’s not a concept of formal logic. (Say, did they have formalized logic back then?) I interpret the term as saying that we are questioning the validity of a statement, based on wether the invalidity of the statement can be reconciled with everything else as we understand it. This interpretation is supported by the fact that Descartes backs up each stated doubt with an explanation of how it could reasonably be false. [Insert counterexample here, if you like.]
When a fact is proven “beyond a reasonable doubt”, it means that, within a certain degree of probability, there is no other way for the observed scenario to exist other than the ‘proven’ fact being true. This means that, implicitly or explicitly, there must be an alternative way to reach the observed result. In this argument, we set the level of toletance at 0. There must be another way to reach the observed result.
When you doubt something, you are not assuming that it is false. You are merely discarding the premise that this is true. There is no analogue to this act in formal logic and so, though you can apply the definition of “I think” in a way that looks like formal logic, the determination of “I think” does not make use of formal logic in any way.
So sorry, Ramanujan, I can’t tell you how to start with nothing and get something. That’s not what is done here. We’re starting with everything and trying to get nothing. It’s a different approach.
The Descartian approach is to attempt to whittle down, until he finds something that cannot be reasonably false. This approach opens itself wide to claims that “You didn’t doubt everything”. Also there are potential points of confusion in that it is not necessary to discard your definitions and tools of logic merely because you are speaking in the theoretical case that they might not be true.
Any questions/complaints/refutations so far? 'Cause if not, I will assume that we all know what it means to doubt. In short form:
Doubting something does not mean that it has been ‘proven’ false.
A given instance of doubting ought to include an alternate explanation of the observed result. If not given, it should be obvious that there are many other ways to achieve the observed results.
Now, I can see it coming: “You keep talking about observed results, but you defined that as proving the observer! You’re begging the question!”
Perhaps, but the observation angle is a bit tenuous. Many arguments speak of things that are not directly observed (for example, “Socrates is a man”) and there is no reason to think of this one any differently. If you like, consider this argumant as, oh, I don’t know, “metathought”; we create a divorced observer, Mr. Meta, who is considering the case of ‘I’. Meta gets to use all the tools of logic throughout the entire argument, even if I has been determined to maybe be a puddle of goo. Meta also doesn’t get to count Meta’s observance of I as proof of I, and we’re not talking about Meta. If you want to start a metametaproof, that’s fine, but then Meta’s observation of I has no more undoubtability that I’s obervation of tulips. Similarly for MetaMeta’s observation of Meta.
Way confusing. Which is we wave off the definition of “observation” as proving anything in this case. If we can’t get by without it, then we relinquish the argument.
Ahh, so, since I am a liar, any defense I might make must be a lie, because I am a liar, and that just reinforces the claim that I am a liar. Your claims are indisputable. (By definition!)
You didn’t say “~A disproves A -> B”? Funny, it’s right there in your post. God only knows what you meant by it, because I certainly never said such a stupid thing, and you appeared to think someone believed it. It’s so hard to understand things that don’t make sense.
Of course you were ambiguous. It was probably based on the fact that you had no clue whatsoever what I was talking about when I said that to ‘disprove’ (ie: render false the claim that something could be known for true from the argument) “I think therefore I am” you should address “I think”. And a post that isn’t based in reality is hard not to misrepresent. But here goes: I apologise that you couldn’t understand my words, and couldn’t resist the chance to jump to a stupid and incomprehensible conclusion when you failed to understand, and accuse me of having having claimed something I hadn’t in a way that was so far out of context it was impossible to tell what you were talking about.
Funny, if you had acknowledged any ambiguity in the term, then you wouldn’t have continued to claim I was lying. You still make the claim. Okay, I publicly apologise that I didn’t explicitly state that S.M. had given lip service to the fact that we didn’t use the word ‘disprove’ the same way.
Oh, wait, you are still claiming that I was lying. You did write those characters in your post, you know. Dunno what you mean by “saying”, but you sure typed it. Wether you believed it or not was veiled in the fact that you were claiming somebody believed it, and it sure wasn’t me.
Yeah, sure you have.
But, just to make you happy: I publicly apologise for not being able to understand when S.M. falsely accused me of saying what I hadn’t, due to a failure in his ability to understand what I had said. Because I was incorrectly assuming that S.M. had the ability to understand the generous amounts of context I put my arguments in, and therefore assumed that he had some vague clue as to what I was talking about, I assumed that when he said somebody believed the silly claim, and since noone else had evidenced doing so, he must have been talking about himself. Thinking that he had made the silly claim was based on the assumption that he was able to read and was replying based on reality. I apologise for accusing S.M. for being able to read or being aware of reality.
Does that make you happy, S.M.? Now, if you had just made your complaint clear, instead of couching it in reams of derogatory accusative rambling, we could have settled this days ago.
Hmm? Wait, erislover, are you leaving? (It’s so hard to tell unspoken intent in these things.) I greatly appreciate this discussion we’ve been having; I had never come even close to clarifying my notions about this particular problem before. S.M. aside, I consider myself a fairly rational individual, and suspect that I am not mistaken in my reasons for thinking that “cogito ergo sum” is nontrivial. You seem to be pretty rational as well; if I wasn’t making this up as I go along, and if I wasn’t such a lousy speaker, I’m sure that I’d have communicated my notions to you by now.
Not that it’s all that important that you be ‘converted’. It’s just I think that there is a perspective to this that you have perhaps not considered, by which the cogito can be understood to have real, meaning. (Also I might be wrong, but until I make myself clear, how can you point out my mistake?)
There are actually some points that I have been reluctant to say, because they seem like I’m giving ground and worse yet, contradicting myself. Bah. Would you believe that even if the argument is circular (or rather, implied by definitions) it might still be otherwise verifiable?
Oh, and as to S.M., thanks for your support, but I was serious; he is getting humorous. While getting called a liar is no joke, I think I just tore him a new one, and am feeling good. It was a little rough when I thought for a second you were supporing him, with the rather obscure reference, but then I noticed you were correcting his word usage. (Your irony can be subtle! )
Anyway, if you’re still interested, I think it might be possible to prove this in spite of cirucularity. (Besides, and this might be a bit of a hijack, but it has occured to me that logically there must be at least one thing that is true and yet not directly provable without circularity; in other words, there must be a true fact that is not directly provable as true. And this is just the sort of argument in which I would expect it to turn up. I’m hoping to prove it true indirectly by demonstrating that it cannot be false.)
Whichever; now that (I think) I’ve figured out what he was squalking about, I have made adequate refutation for my peace of mind. I full expect to be called a liar again, and not to care…
As to the Descartes situation, basically, the reason we can conclude that I exists is as follows: We know what I’s existence looks like. It’s easy to wonder about its underpinnings, but we at least know what face it’s putting on. We also know what ‘nothing’, or ‘non-existence’ looks like, in massive part because it’s a human-defined concept. Non-existence cannot, regardless of how distorted our perspective is, end up looking like our thoughts and memories. Non-existence is, after all, uniform, and there are percieved variations in our memory and supposedly current thoughts.
That’s basically it. The evidence is not consistent with our non-existence. It is, however, consistent with any non-uniform thing, which peaks and valleys can be mistaken for the supposedly organized memories and thoughts we supposedly have. Hey, we can’t know everything.
It’s kinda a ‘proven innocent in a court of law’ kinda proof rather than a ‘proven true conditional on a set of premises’ proof.
I think that this avoids the sort of confusing repetitiveness and logical formality that I’m prone to. Reactions, anyone?
No, you are a liar because you say things with an intent to deceive. That you continue this practice during your attempts to defend yourself from the truth is simply an observation. You have the causality reversed:
Ah – a new tactic. Now you will seek refuge in picayune details. Are you honestly so devoid of character that you will defend the false statemnt that I was asserting “~A disproves A -> B” simply because those characters appear somewhere in my post? Apparently so. Of course, they appear in your post, too, so you must also have been asserting it.
The kids on the playground must all stand in awe of your rhetorical mastery.
I don’t believe anybody else has any difficulty understanding the points of our dispute, despite your best efforts.
Ah, equivocation. Now you are graduating to adult tricks of obscutration.
[ol][li]There is no ambiguity surrounding the question of whether I argued that “~A disproves A -> B”.[/li]li is true despite the range of childish methods that you have employed to pretend that you did not lie.[/li][li]There has been exactly one area of ambiguity in this little side discussion: the meaning of “disprove” in a context of philosophical/logical debate.[/li][li]That discrepancy of usage was recognized some time ago, despite your best efforts to pretend that it poisons our current understanding.[/li][li]That area of ambiguity is entirely irrelevant to whether I made the assertion that you claimed, since I never made that assertion using either meaning of “disprove”.[/li][li]Your attempot to use the (long since addressed) ambiguity in the meaning of “disprove” to declare ambiguity in whether I asserted “~A disproves A ->B” is a logical fallacy known as equivocation, though it has hints of amphiboly as well.[/li][li]We can only speculate upon whether you intend to be deceptive when you, repeatedly, resort to such tactics. For me, the weight of evidence is clear. You are a liar.[/ol][/li]
Really? And yet, your misrepresentation had nothing to do with the meaning of “disprove”, for I never made the claim you asserted under any meaning for disprove. The bizarre contortions you undergo simply to avoid admitting that you made a false statement are truly amazing.
Ah – the insult veiled as apology. I often wonder, why do people post these? There is obviously no apology offered. Do you imagine that anybody reads this and thinks that you have actually expressed remorse? Are you too cowardly to simply make your insult directly?
You may keep this apology. It seems to fit much better in your mouth than in my ears. Shall we look at the details of your insult?
[ul][li]couldn’t understand my words: Your words were: “[those who argue that ~A disproves A->B] is exactly you, spirited moron.” I understand those words perfectly well. They are not true.[/li][li]couldn’t resist the chance to jump to a stupid and incomprehensible conclusion My conclusion is: you post things which are not true, and you do so in an attempt to deceive. The first is indisputable. Any doubts about the second have been erased by your continued reliance upon deceitful tactics in defense of untruth. You are a liar. Perhaps you have difficulty comprehending that. I do not.[/li][li]accuse me of having having claimed something I hadn’t. You claimed that I had argued that ~A disproves A -> B. Your words are quoted above. They were followed by a lovely little diatribe that included a truth table for ~A -> B. I understand that you may now wish you had made non such claim, but pretending that you did not is simply stupid. It’s a message board: your words are still visible.[/li][li]in a way that was so far out of context it was impossible to tell what you were talking about. Scroll up this page and find a post of mine dated: 03-15-2003 01:10 AM. You are telling another lie.[/ul][/li]
No. Your lie had nothing to do with our conflicting usages of the word “disprove”.
You have yet to retract or apologize for the lie. Furthermore, you sprout ever more lies in your absurd attempts to weasel out of the first one. It was ever thus, spake the immortal Bard.
[li]Begbert2: [a citation from Meriam-Webster] (which is of course the final arbitrator of usage in logic and philosophy.)[/li]
[li]Spiritus Mundi: Whether you said ~A disproves A -> B as I intimated depends entirely upon how one uses the word “disprove” in this context. We have both clearly presented our usage, and they are at odds. Again, there is no disputation of these facts. Under my usage of disprove, you made the claim. Under your usage, you did not. So I have no trouble acknowleging that the intimation on my part was based entirely upon a disagreement in usage and that you did not intend to offer ~A as a disproof for A -> B.[/li]
You see, I don’t think a message board dispute with a clown is sufficiently important to compromise my integrity. I have no need to dissemble and distract in order to avoid acknowledging such a simple misunderstanding.
[/ul]
I think that you may keep this apology as well. I don’t like the smell of it.
You are still lying.
I did not make the argument. No honest man would continue to pretend that I did. What you attributed to me was “those who argue” not “those who type”. But, of course, we all know that. It has been quoted often enough. Yet one person in this thread insists on pretending that having the characters appear in my post means that I was making that argument. That person would be the liar.
Definitely the acme of your wit. One can only imagine that it knocked them dead in the third grade, and you have never been able to think of a better trick. Let’s just head, again, to the details of your insults.
[ul][li]for not being able to understand when S.M. falsely accused me of saying what I hadn’t. A patently false claim. Your words are clear: “Which is exactly you, spirited moron.” The words are clear. The words are false.[/li][li]due to a failure in his ability to understand what I had said: There is no misunderstanding about these words, except perhaps in the tangled web of your deceptions.[/li][li]Because I was incorrectly assuming that S.M. had the ability to understand the generous amounts of context I put my arguments in. I understood perfectly. You followed your lie with an insulting take on my username and a truth table for A -> B. You were claiming that I had made that argument. That you pretend otherwise now is simply a sad reflection upon the nature of some men.[/li][li]*I assumed that when he said somebody believed the silly claim, and since noone else had evidenced doing so, he must have been talking about himself. * Right. But I’m the one who fails to appreciate context or understand written English.[/li]
Does this mean you are abandoning the “but the words appear in your post” strategy and the “I coudn’t tell whether you made an argument because I didn’t know how you were using ‘disprove’” strategy and returning to the “when you wrote that ‘those who argue ~A disproves A -> B are confused by what an implication is’ I thought you meant ‘I argue that ~A disproves A -> B’” strategy? Okay. It will be fun to see you wrap yourself in ‘Y kant Deggy reed’ after having spent so much effort to pretend otherwise. Of course, it’s a little late now to pretend that it has all been just an honest misunderstanding, since there has been so little honesty in your nevernding series of evasions, equivocations, and dissemblings after the fact. That Shakespeare was one smart cookie.[/ul]
This apology, too, is yours to treasure as an epitome of your wit.
This one, however, must embarrass even you in retrospect. It is yours to keep as well, but I suspect it shall soon be consigned to the cramped and musty corners of your memory. Perhaps it can say hello to your integrity while it is there.
No. I feel sorry for you, actually, though that does not make me more inclined to acept your lies and insinuations.
Sadly enough, I suspect that this is true.
If you worry whether erislover supports your “side” in this, perhaps you should simply ask him to state his position. If you think that he was correcting my usage, you should familiarize yourself with the word “eminent”. Now, to the epistemological question at hand
Since erl has stepped aside, I will let pass your responses to his questions 1-4 (though I suspect that I know why he was asking about grammatical consequences). Question 5 was:
[ul][li]How do I know that I ask the question “do I exist?” [/ul][/li]Your response was to discuss a meta-obserer, and then waving him off as not being relevant to the proof, which is correct but raises the question of why you brought him up in the first place. Metaobservation can have no relevance to the epistemological question of verification of observation.
You still have yet to address question 5 in a meaningful manner. My lack of surprise is predictable.
)