True; sometimes it’s merely startling.
Or erotic.
Sometimes it’s very confusing when you only see the eyes.
Of course, also according to Pratchett, the worlds are made by specialized construction crews who create them from the core out by special order. See Strata.
Sorry, I haven’t read Strata. My info is mainly from Eric, where Rincewind comes face-to-face with the Creator and The Discworld Mapp.
This shows the importance of context. When you say this, it is deep. When he says it, it is idiotic, because he doesn’t understand or appreciate how science can approach the truth or the predictive power of science.
“Tell me about the rabbits” means very different things when spoken by Richard Adams’ editor and Lenny.
Reading kanicbird’s posts in that Ouija Board thread was highly amusing, yet utterly distressing at the same time. It’s hard to believe a thinking person could actually consider that remotely close to being reasonable debating.
What you’re saying is basically right, but the example you’ve chosen is a bad one, I think, since it’s not a claim about the real world, but a claim about a mathematical system we use to model a part of it (i.e. the behaviour of indivisible quantities), and follows within that system directly from its construction. You can then, of course, ask whether or not it accurately models the natural world, and indeed, we may find instances where it does not (consider the addition of relativistic speeds), but that doesn’t impinge on the fact that within that system, 1 + 1 = 2.
Also, you neglect to mention is that there are infinitely many statements that science can determine the truth of – existential claims, i.e. those of the form ‘there is at least one x’, when an x is observed. Those existential claims, plus the logical inferences drawn from them, may very well be enough to describe the entire universe – no small feat, in my eyes.
There are two things that diminish the likelihood venting at **Kanicbird **will change his approach (not that you are trying to do that).
First, his paradigm is essentially built around a conspiracy theory. In this conspiracy Satan and his pards are the source of all that is contrary to **Kanicbird’s **beliefs. All who notice any inconsistencies have had their minds twisted by Satan’s conspiracy to destroy the real Truth. Conspiracy theories are attractive to a certain personality disorder which leans toward paranoia; as such the opportunity to use logic or reason to dislodge the belief is ineffective. Whatever genetic flaw creates the paranoid syndrome is unaffected by logic, similar to the way a phobia is unaffected by the absence of a real danger.
Second, **Kanicbird’s **belief paradigm includes credit for witnessing, and in particular witnessing in the face of adversity. Heaping scorn upon him provides him opportunity to suffer for the Great Cause, and quite literally get extra credit.
I should add that paranoids are frequently highly intelligent and well spoken. They’re just stupid. (Again; I am not name-calling but just using the term in its literal sense.)
Since the diskworld in Strata is not in the Diskworld universe, both are correct - another example of context being important.
Or camouflage.
Can we just cut to the chase, and flat out ask what gives kanicbird (or lekatt for that matter), the unmitigated gall, arrogance and authority to speak about such things as absolute fact?
Who are they, and how can they be so goddamn sure they’re so absolutely right?
Anyone, and that goes for everyone (those faithless and with faith), who claims to have all the answers, as they do, are so full of bullshit, it’s squeezing out of their eyesockets like a Play-Doh (or should that be Plato*) Fun Factory.
*A student of Socrates who said, “All I know is that I know nothing.”
Doesn’t anybody else here think that kanicbird is whooshing us all? Look at this post from the ouija thread:
To me, this was the smoking gun. I’m pretty sure he’s having a fairly extensive laugh on the rest of us.
Naw, the guy is a certified nutjob. I think that statement of his was made with a half-smile, but he still believes everything he types.
Damn straight. Not to mention, his mind’s been deceived by a demon masquerading as The Holy Spirit, a spiritually destructive entity which snacks on human souls the same way a Venus Flytrap devours insects, or a human being munches Cheetos. Goodness only knows how many other souls he’s attracted to that bottomless pit of mindless unreason, though I suppose on this board he can do little damage.
If that’s the case, that would make him a troll and therefore worthy of banning, right?
(P.S. It would make sense that the followers of Christ are by nature trollish, since many of the original disciples were fishermen, eh?)
Ban nuclear testing!
That’s the problem, right there.
It seems to me that Kanickbird, sometime in his past, decided “this is the truth and all there is to know” and henceforth shut down his brain. Wheter from sheer delusion, intellectual limpness or indoctrination I couldn’t tell.
The perfect definition of a closed mind.
Why is “this is the truth and all there is to know” any more closed minded than “no, that’s not the truth and all there is to know”?
I really haven’t encountered him, but I’m more than willing to take your word for it. Though there is much about which you and I disagree, we agree about the fundamental underpinnings of epistemology generally, and you are nothing if not honest. Still, one wonders whether this is the right course. This whole thread is people poking out their tongues and behaving like third graders on the playground tormenting the poor albino child. Can’t you approach this Kanicbird person by acknowledging first that he’s right about what he says, and then showing him the context in which he is? Must it be that everything he says is struck down, even when it’s true?
I think that’s overly broad. I (and many others) have observed God. Does that prove God is true? And what about optical illusions? Uncalibrated or faulty instruments? Uniqueness (one person observes a thing that happens only once)? You might invoke repeatability, but then why should it be true before everybody has observed it? Is a thing true only as a perception of conscious minds? The essential problem with empiricism is that no two people can possibly observe the same thing the same way, owing to the nature of electromagnetism and time.
That’s no small plus. Einstein’s relativity theories were deductively derived. They were true, given the truth of their premises, before the first scientific test was ever made. The tests were done for the purpose of falsification.
No; I think truth is completely independent of perception. Knowledge of that truth, however, necessitates it, but that’s just tautologically saying ‘nobody can know something nobody knows’.
I’ve gone into this elsewhere, but what you’re essentially highlighting is the problem of credibility in a group – for the individual, empiricism is a perfectly simple and exact thing: observation decides existential truths, and errors in observation will self-correct over time (provided, of course, that he is not deluded, but then he doesn’t really have a choice but to believe that, anyway). In a group, however, matters get a little more complicated – why should I believe your empirical claims if I haven’t made the same observations? Now, in a group of rational people, this can be resolved, since if any existential claim is true, group consensus will eventually shift towards accepting that claim, once more and more of its members make the requisite observation (this may take a long time if the observation is of sufficiently low probability to be made, but the important thing here is that the group consensus cannot drift in the wrong direction in the long run, which means that eventually it will accept the truth of all true existential claims). That doesn’t mean, however, to just go with the majority vote on all issues – on the contrary, since on most questions, consensus will start out being wrong; but in the long run, it will right itself.
Now, in the real world, we don’t have that singular consensus, we don’t really have just one single group, and who is and who isn’t rational alone is a question to occupy one’s lifetime, so we have to make a couple of subjective calls; to me, knowing what science (and as far as I know, science alone) is capable of, this means trusting science. (And similar calls are made in other areas of life, for instance when the court calls for the prosecution to prove the defendant’s guilt ‘beyond any reasonable doubt’; if you can trust this, I see no reason not to trust science.)
Exactly; and had they falsified it, all his brilliant theories would merely have amount to scribbles on paper. That’s where science is needed, since deductive reasoning alone cannot tell you anything about the real world.