Well, I could pass around a series of T or ~T objects, note which ones get classifed as 'T’s, and then infer that all Ts were aquatic or terrestrial reptiles of the order Testudines (or Chelonia), having horny toothless jaws and a bony or leathery shell. Can you do the same with examples of G?
[sub]This is actually an old Rabbi joke but it will do.[/sub]
Rabbi: Shalom Libertarian! What brings you to the temple?
Libertarian: Greetings Rabbi! You are the wisest man I know. My mind is unsettled and my heart is heavy with a terrible dilemma. Simply put, I cannot prove red is a color.
Rabbi: Excuse me?
Libertarian: It’s true. Definitions do not have truth value. They are neither true nor false. They are not logical propositions — they are definitions.They don’t imply anything. They don’t prove anything. They’re not provable. A word and its definition form a tautology. Have you ever read a geometry book? Terms are defined. Period. THERE ARE NO PROOFS OF THE DEFINITIONS. The proofs use the definitions to begin a chain of inference that ends with a conclusion.
Rabbi: Well that is a conundrum… let me think as to how best answer this deep question.
The Rabbi leans forward in his chair and suddenly hits Libertarian in the nose. Libertarian yelps in pain and holds his nose which is now bleeding profusely. The Rabbi hands him a few Kleenex.
Rabbi: Red is the color of the spots on that Kleenex.
I believe your OP in this thread contradicts the quoted post. If it is indeed valid that definitions are not a physicalacially provable object, but rather a linguisticalismizationary artificialionalist construnctionalism of the form bone(T)=USDA’~grainfed, then Sentientmeat’s point would obviously not be of the physicalality plane, it would possess a subset of zero kilocalories, and would contain no cattle flesh as the word “beef” implies.
So does this mean you concede your “proof” is about proving the validity of a definition of God and has nothing whatsoever to do with proving the actual real world existence of God, the which has eluded better minds than either of ours for thousands of years?
Although I don’t have a cite, it is accepted in photography and the graphic arts industry that the components of white light are “additive primary colors” consisting of red, green and blue.
Mixing these in pairs result in “subtractive primary colors”, those being magenta, yellow, and cyan.
Therefore, red has to exist, or everyone who has done color photographic processing from George Eastman on down to the shlub in his darkroom at home is 1/3 short of the equation.
If you disagree, please return to the Rabbi for further enlightment.
Man, I feel cheated. First time getting pitted, and it’s a loony, irrational, off-the-wall, berserker lame rant about this? It’s pathetic. It’s disgracefull.
A temple is a building constructed of marmalade, in which tubas dance around, playing oldies and telling off-color jokes, and in which up is down and down is up. Such is my definition of a temple. To build my temple, therefore, I will need three hundred tons of marmalade and forty tubas (fifty tubas, if I want it to be especially swingin’). Will any sane person tell me that I have drawn a wrong conclusion because my definition is possibly untrue? or will anyone ask me to prove my definition?
Alternately, a temple is a nonbuilding, which has not spatial form and no temporal being, which no one can visit, see, touch, or otherwise sense, and which either must exist or does not exist. Since there is no reason that this temple cannot exist, it must exist. Will any sane person tell me that I have drawn a wrong conclusion because my definition is possibly untrue? or will anyone ask me to prove my definition?
I don’t know whether Spinoza would appreciate being attached to this argument.