funny, I rarely even see you stoop so low as to give a “definition”, let alone a meta-definition.
it is: it just doesnt mean what you take it to mean, which is why we want definitions of your terms.
Actually, when he first pretended that he didn’t know what goodness is, I linked him to American Heritage’s definition and told him that it would suffice for discussion. He wasn’t satisfied. He wanted the words in the definition defined.
No, I wanted Libertarian to explain what he meant, since his posts about goodness went beyond what the AH’s definition seemed to imply.
That statement establishes a simple relationship between two concepts: points and lines. We’re all familiar with the concepts of “exist”, “unique”, and “passing through”.
But what in the world does it mean for a value system to describes certain kinds of perceptions to be valuable?
So this is just a high-school debating match.
Good luck Lib! Catch him out in a tu quoque! Rah rah!
Idiot. :rolleyes:
That’s Libertarian for you: always more interested in form than in content. Which is probably why he regurgitates so many meaningless but syntactically impeccable arguments all over these boards.
The master of the Way values the fruit, and not the flower;
the message, and not the messenger;
the content, and not the form.
As soon as I read that line, I was reminded of someone who was pitted earlier this week for trying to pass himself off as a doctor in another thread. When called on it by Coldfire, he admitted that he was an amateur, but later claimed that he knew more than the experts. Sound familiar? Yep, it’s the same clown.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=218026&perpage=50&pagenumber=1
He and his chorus of suspected muppets do this for a hobby.
Don’t take it personally or seriously.
Zoe, they’re both clowns.
Vorlon
Do you or do you not intend to answer my questions? Is Desmo the agent that you have assigned to speak for you?
Recap
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What is wrong with the common definition of goodness — “The quality of being good in any of its various senses; excellence; virtue; kindness; benevolence; as, the goodness of timber, of a soil, of food; goodness of character, of disposition, of conduct, etc.”?
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Why is David Hilberts deductive method unsatisfactory?
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If DH’s DM is satisfactory, in what way am I violating it?
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Why does the conclusion “Goodness is the aesthetic most valued by God” not follow from the premises as stated?
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Is it true that you don’t like me?
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Why do you deny me the use of undefined terms to develop a deductive system?
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Do you or do you not have any cites to back your argument?
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Why is “Goodness is the most valuable aesthetic” contain several complex concepts while “For every point P and every point Q not equal to P there exists a unique line that passes through P and Q.”
That last should read as follows:
- Why does “Goodness is the most valuable aesthetic” contain several complex concepts while “For every point P and every point Q not equal to P there exists a unique line that passes through P and Q” does not?
I never claimed to be a doctor, Zoe. Some idiots couldn’t keep themselves from leaping to conclusions – after all, anyone who claims to possess knowledge about clinical psychology must be a practicing physician, right?
I do indeed know more about psychological research than most clinicians – most clinicians aren’t involved in research, psychological or otherwise.
Twit.
Zoe
He also claims that he knows the implications of what he calls the “Godel Incompleteness Theorem” (sic) while Spiritus Mundi does not. That sort of bullshit is a cancer at a board devoted to the eradication of ignorance.
Oh, and I wasn’t Pitted for representing myself as a doctor – Guin Pitted me because she thought I was making such claims. I invited her several times to point out where I had supposedly made them – I guess she just never got around to it.
Now, to return to the topic at hand:
When Lib says that “goodness is the most valuable aesthetic”, he’s doing one of two things. Either he accepts the implicit definition and is making a claim about what a consequence of that definition is, or he’s defining what he’ll use the word ‘goodness’ to indicate.
The problem is that no one reading Lib’s “arguments” has been able to determine which of these two possibilities is taking place, primarily because there’s little substantive meaning underneath his cant and misdirection. His positions don’t seem to follow from his assumptions, we’re can’t even determine what all of his assumptions are, and he appears to care more for using complex terminology than for analyzing his own claims.
In all of the posts of Lib’s I’ve read, I’ve only come across two times where he actually helped to reduce ignorance. (There might well be plenty I haven’t come across – I can’t speak about them.) There have been countless times he’s buried important debates beneath an onslaught of mindless blather. Ergo, I conclude his net effect on the meme pools here to be negative: he spreads lots of ignorance, and very little enlightenment.
OK, I haven’t been following this closely, so I’m just going to go with Lib’s last post. I’m probably missing stuff in the middle and I haven’t read the specific thread you two are fighting about.
Well, one problem with is that definition of goodness is extremely broad and can be contradictory depending on your value system. For example, suicide. In some cultures, suicide (in certain circumstances) is considered to be good, while in others it is considered to be bad. Another might be clitoridectomy, or foot binding or whatever.
So you’ve essentially got a term that is meaningless if you are trying to apply it universally to certain things.
So you say goodness is the most valuable aesthetic. OK, I’ll agree with that. We’ve established that whatever is considered the most valuable aesthetic to a certain person is good.
The problem now is that you’ve said goodness is the aesthetic most valuable to God. OK, fine and dandy.
But the two don’t necessarily connect. Basically, you’ve said that goodness is whatever is most valuable to God. Fine, but what is most valuable to God?
I’m assuming now that you are going with the definition of benevolence and whatnot to say that benevolence and kindness are most valuable to God. OK, fine and dandy. But why even bring in that whole aesthetic thing. You’re just using what you believe to be most valuable to God to define what goodness is using a fancy middleman.
Is this what the whole thing is about? Have I missed something? Is there really a fight about this?
Lib, you’re not qualified to judge what Spiritus or myself understands.
GIT puts limits on the power of models, and to the degree that those models accurately represent systems, they limit them as well. Any systems that are causal and sufficiently complex to model basic math are therefore limited by GIT.
You’ve never even understood that computers are physical entities as well as concepts – that the physical world is bound by the same limits as ideas, that the physical world is nothing but ideas. [sigh]
Neurotik
I agree with you. But that’s rather the point. I’m specifically NOT trying to apply it universally. I’m merely applying it to the specified deductive system that I’ve derived.
Merely as a formal philosophical term. A philosophy (or worldview) may be defined by its metaphysic, its ethic, its epistemology, and its aesthetic.
In the case of my system, they are these…
Metaphysic: Necessary existence
Epistemology: Revelation
Ethic: Love
Aesthetic: Goodness
Apparently. I can never state my beliefs without ridicule from Vorlon (and Desmo and one or two others of lesser significance).
Bwa ha ha Ha ha ha! [collapses into fits of giggles]
Obviously, scholarly links mean nothing to you.
But for the benefit of anyone who cares to understand what is meant by a revelatory epistemology, here is a brief explanation from Stanford University’s philosophy encyclopedia, including mention of Alton’s important work in the past decade.
An epistemology of revelation is quite normal for a religious belief system — your fits of giggles notwithstanding.
Ah, yes. Another link.
Lib is a living argument against the “I have a cite, so my position demands respect” position.
Amazing. You even ridicule one of the world’s best universtities. You are truly intellectually worthless.
Whereas Libertarian’s “God Told Me So!” position is a model of rationality and intellectual achievement.
Y’know, everybody, there’s a reason Lib deserted the Great Debates forum – he kept being called out on his spurious and pointless “revelations” about the nature of logic and the universe.