For what it’s worth, I participated in the GIT thread, and I concur that TVAA is a (apparently) a freaking moron.
As other people have pointed out, his arguments basically consist of hand-waving and insulting people. It’s pretty clear that he has little or no understanding of the concepts he is batting around. Honestly, I have a hard time believing that TVAA seriously believes the crap he is spewing.
** Where, exactly, was I using a contradiction to reliably derive an ethos? What contradiction are you talking about?
** If they’re prescriptive – if they define things as “good” or “evil” and then say “don’t do evil things; do good things”, then they can say whatever we want them to say. The things that determine what we want then determine the ethical systems. Ethical systems that aren’t evolutionarily adaptive will cease to exist – regardless of whether an ethical system is meant to describe a property of the world or merely define “proper” behavior, it will eventually develop significance in regards to the world.
But you keep claiming that I’m talking about the label. Then you deny that you’re misrepresenting arguments…
It’s not particularly difficult to understand how living things might arise, and it’s not particularly difficult to understand that they’ll have preferences. Everything else follows.
How did you come to make that sentence? If “value” is already a defined concept, then you’re making a meaningful claim about whether something is valuable or not; if it’s not, your arbitrary definition will eventually be subjected to evolutionary forces and demonstrated to be consistent or inconsistent with continued existence.
I’VE NEVER CLAIMED THAT SURVIVAL IS THE BEST ETHIC! It may be the case that the most successful ethic actually instructs its carriers to attempt NOT to survive. Haven’t you ever heard of the Selfish Gene hypothesis? Survival isn’t the best ethic, but the best ethic is the one that survives.
But I DO demonstrate it logically – it’s just that the proof is given in English instead of arcane mathematical statements.
I’m not claiming I can determine the specifics of what this ethical system will say – I’m claiming that, using logic, I can determine that ethical systems (that describe preferences and goals) will arise, and that they will inevitably develop certain properties.
I wouldn’t have to keep repeating myself if you would stop rectally stuffing your head long enough to get even a marginally accurate sense of what I’m saying. This is the third or fourth time you’ve made completely inaccurate statements about what I’m trying to show – I don’t know which is dumber, that you’re continually defeating a straw man or that you think the straw man is really my argument.
The structure of the computer determines how the computer acts in response to the rest of the universe. That IS the same as deriving new statements from axioms. Computers are always doing this.
** So? They don’t need to use Peano Axiomatizations for GIT to apply – all they need to be capable of doing is demonstrating that 2+2=4. Performing operations (establishing relationships between statements) is all that’s required.
The physical system of the computer IS accepting input and transmitting the signal. This DOES require that the component interactions of the computer’s mechanisms determine how an initial condition results in later conditions – and so GIT will apply, since we both know that physics is sufficiently complex to generate arithmetic.
Amazingly enough, I’ve needed point this out to YOU more than once. Get it through your thick head, Spiritus.
It does, and it’s not an assertion. Any UTM can be simulated by any other UTM as a program. This program MUST be consistent, or the original UTM couldn’t exist in the first place, and this program MUST be sufficiently complex to generate arithmetic. Thus, GIT applies to the program, and thus to the UTM. GIT doesn’t necessarily apply to a program the UTM runs.
This is something like the sixth time I’ve said this, Spiritus. My estimation of your intelligence is now reaching record lows.
It’s not a matter of what the UTM is doing… it’s what the UTM is.
** The program the UTM runs does not need to be consistent… but the description of the UTM’s workings, its running of the program, is necessarily consistent. Otherwise we’ve ruled out the UTM’s ability to work in the first place. Thus the workings of the UTM are subject to GIT…
** No, the program the computer is running does not meet those conditions. The computer itself does meet those conditions.
** It’s not an argument – it’s merely a statement.
Error is always possible; I acknowledge that the mathematical possibility that I’m in error is non-zero. Given that I’ve confirmed my position with people far more competent than you, I am sufficiently convinced of the position’s correctness to keep this up indefinitely.
All computers ARE restricted, because the behavior of the physical world is necessarily limited.
The Matrix was an awful movie – the points it made were obvious to any intelligent person. I’m not surprised that you’ve not familiar with those points, however.
From the GIT thread:
SM: Well, I think we can give this one to GIT by assuming that some of the unproveable theorems in a Peano axiomatization are, in fact, true. Obviously, GIT does not guarnatee this (being unconcerned with soundness), but I don’t think it is a horrible assumptive leap to make.
We don’t need to “assume” that they’re true. Statements are either true or false relative to the axioms in a consistent system. Principles of mathematics MUCH more basic than GIT show this to be the case.
Again, from the same thread:
SM: The only thing GIT tells us about marks on a paper is that there is no way to ever interpret marks on paper to be a proof of certain valid number theoretic statements because no such proofs can exist. This is a limitation of math, not a limitation of pencil and paper.
This is incorrect. GIT doesn’t tell us that some statements do not have proofs. (It’s known that there aren’t any proofs for false statements within consistent systems, but this is trivial.)
GIT tells us that within a given consistent axiomatic system, there will be true statements that the system cannot generate a proof for. There might well be axiomatic systems that are consistent with the original one that CAN prove some of those statements, but then there will always be other statements that the new system can’t prove.
SM states that GIT implies some valid statements have no proofs. THIS IS WRONG!
Later on, he says this:
SM: GIT is absolutely no help to you here. GIT says nothing about “possibilities not capable of being manifested within a system”. You appear to be suffering from the misunderstanding that every true statement in a Peano Axiomatization has a “possible proof”, but GIT just won’t let us manifest them. This is incorrect. GIT says that no possible proof exists for some true statements.
Again, same mistake. GIT doesn’t say that there are no possible proofs for some true statements, it says that there are no possible proofs within specific axiomatic systems for specific statements.
Read this, you moron. As it points out, GIT applies for any set of axioms that are at least as strong as Peano’s. The extended or alternate set of axioms may be able to prove the formerly unprovable statements, but there will then be NEW unprovable statements to contend with. GIT implies much, much more than you’ve stated – and presumably much more than you understand.
[quote]
**Here’s the point that you don’t understand: “can be” does not imply “is”. But “is” implies “can be”.
**
WRONG.
Godel’s Second Incompleteness Theorem states that, and I quote, “in any consistent axiomatizable theory (axiomatizable means the axioms can be computably generated) which can encode sequences of numbers (and thus the syntactic notions of “formula”, “sentence”, “proof”) the consistency of the system in not provable in the system.”
This does NOT apply to all systems, only to sufficiently powerful and complete systems.
Stupid.
Could you repeat that please?
Sure.
Calling Spiritus Mundi an idiot is rather like pissing in a hurricane. But I guess when you gotta go, you gotta go. Tell us, Vorlon, does it really taste like warm beer?
Does TVAA remind anyone else of Justhink?
A bit, yes. For what it’s worth, he’s the user formerly known as The Vorlon Ambassador’s Aide.
And I may ask the admins to change it back… I miss the old name.
Still, I was politely asked to do so by some reasonable individuals…
I’ve just posted a series of statements made by Spiritus Mundi about the nature of GIT and what it says. I’ve tried to show how they’re not only incorrect, but they’re statements that he’s just claimed he never made.
Isn’t anyone going to talk about that instead of my former handle?
Well, the problem was that it ruined the board layout for anyone using 800x600 resolution. Lots of people do not have big monitors. I had thought at the time that you did it out of respect to others. Silly me.
I can only hope this SM pitting goes as well as mine did. 
Seeing as it is already on page two, I have little hope of that anymore. 
Regarding Vorlon, are you guys referring to this?
Of course I did it out of respect for others, Lib. It’s just that I didn’t do it out of respect for you.
If you were the only person reading these boards, I do believe I’d adopt the full name of the Shadows as a handle.
I think the lesson here is that three post doctoral degrees is the prerequisite for pitting ** Spiritus Mundi**, and even then it’s iffy.
Ah, now that was an interesting Pitting.
Of all the people in the GIT thread, erislover you were the only one I was sorry I couldn’t convince. You were at least paying attention…
Maybe you should try The Vorlon Ambassador’s Logical Fallacy. I don’t use 800x600 resolution.
I’ve spoken with people with those prerequisites, and they say Spiritus is wrong.
What other conclusion can I draw?
The problem is that Spiritus not only doesn’t consider arguments not couched in special terms to be worthy of consideration, he’s unable to discuss mathematical ideas in everyday English without getting them wrong.
His brain is like a clay jug filled with leprous spleen-squeezings.
Stuff it, Mr. I-Don’t-Understand-The-Nature-of-Modal-Logic-But-I-Can-Make-Ridiculous-Claims-With-It-Anyway.
You wouldn’t recognize a logical fallacy if you were beaten about the head with one.
How utterly convenient – arrogance and stupidity in a single package. Your mother must have been very proud.
That is truly rich. You’re the little chihuahua who used to crash every thread I participated in and demand that I define words like “if” and “and”. Even presuming that you’re telling the truth about speaking to competent peope — which is a generous stretch — it is entirely likely that you have misunderstood everything they have said.
Did you just talk shit to Lib’s face?
The end is near for you my friend, I can sense it. I will say one thing, whatever you lack in brains you make up for in balls.
My mother? You’re a dick inside an assful of shit.