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| James Burns... |
 Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 5:56 pm |
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John Stafford wrote:
[quote]Just one comment perhaps to jog more thought: as mentioned earlier under
different words was the idea of a human having a history, and an
anticipated future, and certain death - limited lifetime. Human memory
is not perfect - it gently revises the past, interprets the present, and
anticipates a future and a demise, all of which shape how we make
'truth', for better or worse - it is all too human.
[/quote]
I agree. Truth -- when we meet it on the street -- is full of
imperfections. The imperfect circles that we also meet out there,
that mrdilligent has discussed, are a lovely analogy to them.
We imagine the perfect circles that we will never meet -- and we
should be grateful that we can imagine them. Our lives would be
impoverished without them and needlessly complicated. (It is much
easier to imagine a perfect circle than to imagine circles plus
catalogs of imperfections, one catalog to each ball bearing,
each raindrop.)
So it is with perfect truth and perfect justice. They are wonderful
goals, and I am quite satisfied to keep them as goals, even though
I feel pretty certain that I will never meet them on the street.
(Full disclosure: It may be that I am so satisfied because
imperfect street-truth fits in so well with my own views on Truth.
I like the little I know about CS Peirce, especially as regards
truth as a limit point.
(The limit point idea sounds like it is exceptionally rigorous:
there is a theorem from topology whereby the limit points of
a space are filled in by identifying points in the new, larger space
with equivalence classes of sequences from the old, smaller space
that mutually converge. This is one standard way that we step from
the rational numbers to the real numbers.
(As well as being rigorous, there is room for both Truth,
the limit points of our everday truths, and those everyday
imperfection-filled but better-than-yesterday truths.
We hope for better, anyway.
(Also, this fits in very nicely with the sort of convergence
behavior one sees with Bayesian probability work.)
[quote]Consider an imaginary machine that uses perfect boolean logic for
decisions regarding justice. How would it determine givens, inputs, the
assumptions of a case? How would it interpret justice? (Keep in mind
that legal scholarship rarely uses the word justice, but addresses it
sideways in order to avoid death by definition, corruption.)
Remember _Les Misérables_ and inspector Javert who was the justice
machine.
[/quote]
I think John von Neumann showed that, with enough Boolean logic,
we could get a machine to do pretty much anything at all. So,
it seems to me the question isn't so much what would this perfect
machine decide to do, but what would we imperfect beings tell it to do.
I think that's an excellent question to ask, not that I propose
to answer it all by myself. Also, as you might guess, I think
we will do better and better at approaching Perfect Justice
as history goes on, without (I strongly suspect) ever quite
reaching it.
Jim Burns |
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| mrdilligent... |
| Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 4:23 am |
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Date: Mon, Oct 19 2009 5:07 pm
From: James Burns
mrdilligent wrote:
[quote]Date: Sun, Oct 18 2009 11:55 am
From: Jim Burns
(I use scare quotes
because I anticipate objections, but, really, what is a
significant difference between machine- and human-generated
statements, other than an arbitrary boundary?)
You are a smart man to have anticipated objections! I hope I
delineated (in a simplified way, of course) the difference between
machine and living organism (such as man), and therefore the
difference between their "statements."
[/quote]
<<Perhaps you have, in other threads or on other occasions.
However, I would encourage you to re-read your previous post,
the only other post of yours that I see. Perhaps you thought
you had done so one more time, but I do not see it.>>
Sorry, but I have become lost. I believe I defined statements and the
difference between man and machine below.
<<The closest I see to what I was looking for is your "But we
must take care to realize that any statement, in any medium,
is just an EXPRESSION of the mind." I didn't see any support for
this, and I attempted to provide counter-examples.>>
Wasn't this in my first post? It is fairly obvious that language is
only the expression of the human mind; it does not exist as anything
else (or has no other role, if you prefer.) Statements (verbal ones)
are a function of language (or mathematic symbols; same difference).
It doesn't need any other kind of "support."
<<You made clear, and you make clear again below, that you
believe there is a fundamental difference to be found here.
If I may paraphrase you, the difference between statements with
machine and human origins is one of 'provenance', just as a
cabinet could, in principle, be indetectably similar to an
actual antique but, lacking the proper history, can only be
an imitation.>>
I never mentioned provenance, but if you mean there is a difference
between the artificially real (man-made) and the cosmoterrestrially
real, there surely is, and a very important difference. Because this
great difference is overlooked or considered trivial, we
contemporaries get VERY confused about reality, which, as I pointed
out, comes in these two distinctly different sets. This leads to
delusions, such as "there are multiple realities." In fact, there is
only ONE reality (two subsets of it, artificial and real), but
multiple delusions---because of the implicit confusing of the two.
<<What I am having trouble finding is the reason this provenance
is important in the case of the statements. (Without this explanation,
it looks like an arbitrary boundary, to me, as I believe
I mentioned before.) In the case of antiques or fine art or
historical documents there are specific reasons "identical"
is nonetheless regarded as "not as good".>>
Has the above para made it any clearer to you? There is nothing
"arbitrary" about the self-evident. Nor have I ever mentioned one as
being "not as good" relative to the other. It seems you have a
tendency to interpolate from your own head and then claim I hold to
it.
[quote]To my thinking, a statement can only be generated by a living
organism. A living tree can make its own statement, but an artificial
tree cannot; it can only be a HUMAN statement about the human self.
That said, humans can make statements in many media: language, of
course, and mathematics; also drawing or painting or scupting; also in
the choice of clothing one wears, the car one chooses to drive, and so
on. A human can make statements even in the food he cooks!
.. . ..[/quote]
<<This exchange started as an investigation into the nature
/true/ statements. You have asserted that a mind is necessary
to make a statement (I am still reserving judgment on that).
However, even granting that, isn't a mind insufficient for
/true/ statements?>>
This might be splitting hairs. A great deal has to do with mental
health. In a rather "negative" way, Abrahm Maslow pointed out what
valid mental health of the human would be, if he could just find it.
In essence, he said that a mentally healthy human would be OBJECTIVE,
about self as much as all else; such a human could "turn round on
himself," observing himself and his behavior exactly on the criteria
he observes others and all else. I agree with this.
In the bible we read that one can "see God" only if he has a "pure"
mind. Read _see_ as understand, as in, "Oh, I see what you are
getting at" (because obviously no vision is important here), and read
_pure_ as natural---as inborn. Not neurotic, borderline, or
psychotic. Although this, and just about all, statements in the
bible are grotesquely misunderstood, I happen to agree with the above
meaning. A healthy natural mind can see reality (both sets) as it IS;
a neurotic (or worse) cannot. (Why do you suppose young children can
be so canny about the truth of something they have experienced, like
false teeth or whatever.)
.. . .
[quote]
I am not campaigning for anything, unless it be the simple, and oft-
overlooked, truth.
[/quote]
I have trouble accepting that.
Why is that? Is it your experience that ALL people have subjective
perceptions and motives?
<<When you say "there is no such thing as a circle", then
you are giving meanings to your words that are not commonly
used. Given their words' usual meanings, sentences such as
"There are circles." or "Circles exist." are utterly
uncontroversial.>>
This gets us into language itself, about which I could write TOMES.
Instead, I will simply say that I use words referentially as much as
possible, even though the MLA went off the millenia-old (if not always
followed largely because of ignorance) referential standard of words
in mid-centurly last. They chose instead "how words are used" as the
"manings" of words. Very few people today use words referentially.
But _circles_ is not part of this, I was referring to exactly that
which is called "circle" by everyone, and they do not exist---I should
have said, in cosmoterrestrial reality, not in artificial reality. Of
course they exist in artificial reality; they are fundamental to man's
technology.
<<If you are not proposing to change the meaning of some
fairly basic words, such as "exist", then you must be talking
gibberish instead.>>
Hah hah! This reminds me of Bill Clinton's "it depends on what "is"
is."
Yes, _exist_ is a basic word, alright; as basic as _the_ or _and_. We
don't suffer much confusion over _the_, and the confusion over _and_
is implicit and hidden, but _exist_ is another story. But no, I do
not propose to change its basic meaning; only to explain how, in
serious discourse, it is to be used; viz., that there are two kinds of
more or less valid existence, artificial-and-real, and
cosmoterrestrial-and-real. A figment of the imagination does not
exist in either category.
A figment of the imagination, whether unicorns or Sherlock Holmes, IS
metaphysical, but it does not exist in metaphysical actuality. An
example of metaphysically actuallity is logic. Not a quark's worth
of matter, but it pervades everything.
Any fiction is much the equivalent of hallucinations, even if we do
not see them as such. (Oh boy, are you gonna have problems with
that!)
[quote]As for the word _existence_, it is a badly
misused as well as overused word. In the field of philosophy over the
generations, it has been tangled into the most tightly interwoven
knots.
[/quote]
<<Perhaps the problem is that it is used in many different ways.>>
Indeed; some in valid ways, and some in invalid ways (cf. Bill
Clinton's weaseling.)
.. . . .
[quote]
Now I have a very different, but very complex, understanding of
existence, with or without the word _existence_. Too complex to lay
out here. But to be simple, does a unicorn exist? No, it does not
and never did exist. Even the brickabrack and toys shaped like a
unicorn does not render the unicorn existence; these are just glazed
clay figurines (which do exist), or stuffed cloth shapes, or
whatever. Sherlock Holmes never existed; he "is" a fictional
character in books, which do exist.
Circles---and all items of human technology, from the first
prehistoric adzes---do exist, but as man's technology, not as
cosmoterrestrial reality. Unicorns and Sherlock Holmes are not
included in man's technology, as humanly delightful as they may be.
[/quote]
<<I wonder why you exclude unicorns and Sherlock Holmes. They are
surely components of stories -- arguably our first technology
and perhaps still our most important technology (though totally
lacking in 21st century flash, of course).>>
I don't think of stories as technology. Among prehistoric humans,
fiction did not exist; metaphors did. Metaphors (to use the Greek
word for them) are not fiction, but physical and familiar
representations of the abstract. The abstract---the metaphysically
valid---cannot be depicted or explained or talked about in any
statement, only that which is sensorily detectable can be.
There are two valid types of stories, those which are told directly,
as in news stories or essays, and those which are told via metaphor,
as myths were. Greek drama was metaphorical, not fictional. That is
why they were so popular. Metaphorical tales lasted right up until
about, say, the 19th c, when fiction began to enter the field. There
is nothing metaphorical about Sherlock Holmes, and whatever the
unicorn represented metaphorically has by now been hopelessly lost.
Shakespear was metaphorical. Today we have pure fiction and purely
for entertainment for entertainment's sake.
Now you will argue what you learned in school, that metaphors are used
in pure fiction. Well, not true metaphors usually. More like
"imagery." And metaphors are NOT "figures of speach" or "literary
devices." Jim Burns, civilization has taken us to the pathelogically
absurd.
Of course, this post would not be complete if we did not mention that
language is not a human technology, either, but that is another story. |
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| mrdilligent... |
| Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 4:34 am |
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I found this unsent in my outbox. Perhas this is a post to which Jim
Burns referred.
Date: Sun, Oct 18 2009 11:55 am
From: Jim Burns
mrdilligent wrote:
[quote]
But we must take care to realize that any statement, in any medium, is
just an EXPRESSION of the mind. There is no such thing as a true
statement. The statement may express a truth in a mind, or a
falsehood, or any combination of these. A statement which expresses
something actual is a "true statement" only because the mind doing the
expresssing is thinking something actual.
[/quote]
<<I think you oversimplify here what a statement is.>>
Oversimplify? No; simplify, yes, because it is impossible to go into
even important details on an ng.
<<In previous ages, I might have mentioned spirits or gods
as counter-examples -->>
Spirits or gods do not equate with statements. Now you are beginning
to sound like Kevin Murphy. :-)
<< today, well, what about artificial
intelligence? Even without AI, we have today many automated
processes that make "statements" that are "understood" quite
well by other automated processes.>>
This ubiquitous contemporary idea makes my blood boil. There is all
this talk about humans and robots: can they work together? Or one or
the other?
We might as well ask whether hammers and/or humans. The robot is just
a TOOL; it is an automated, complex, tool, to be sure, but a tool
nonetheless. AI has NO mind, no real intelllgence. It is just matter
made, by minded man, to follow the mindless rules of matter,
according to a materially encoded set of "glitches" etched into a
material medium to set off the photonic flow inherent in the
computer. We call these encoded "glitches" software, a program for
the computer or robot, etc. to implement. Computers don't understand
one another; their matter simply follows the material "glitches"
provided by other computers. Thus we can have one robot making a tool
becaused a computer lays out the design for it in so many "glitches."
(A simplification for the above reason.)
In my last, I used early Egyptian civ to point out that it ALWAYS
happens as the years and generations pass that people forget that
people made the tool(s), and study the tool(s) intensely, accrediting
to the tool powers that it does not have. Circles or AI.
One of the causes, which we can easily notice today, is the language
WE use to denote what these contraptions do. "Artificial
INTELLIGENCE," "UNDERSTAND," COMMUNICATE and even TALK, LANGUAGE,
and so forth. Why, we have even gone so far as to say that computers
are "smarter" than humans (I wonder why!), and so some day the
computers may take over human doings! And then there is
"consciousness"; do computers have "consciuousness"?
No, because in order to have any level of consciousness---awareness--a
thing or entity must have COGNITION. Machines have NO cognition.
Even a bacterium has cognition.
To simplify, again, a computer is just an elaborate version of our
household circuit panels, only much, much smaller (today), with many
more interconnections. A robot is a complex configuration of matter,
made to do one or more certain tasks (like a hammer or saw at a
simpler level) when guided by some sort of internal or external
computer. The ONLY mind involved is that belonging to man, who
invented the computer/robot because he is lazy about using his own
mind (or at least becomes lazy quickly because he has invented an
artificial brain, much as he one invented artificial hands, etc.).
Computers and robots are fine tools!! But that is all they are,
tools.. |
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| James Burns... |
| Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 6:08 pm |
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[I have drastically cut down the size of this post. It's
true that I had much I could have said elsewhere, but
I just do not have time to say everyting I would like
to say, and I suspect you do not either.]
mrdilligent wrote:
[quote]Date: Mon, Oct 19 2009 5:07 pm
From: James Burns
The closest I see to what I was looking for is your "But we
must take care to realize that any statement, in any medium,
is just an EXPRESSION of the mind." I didn't see any support for
this, and I attempted to provide counter-examples.
Wasn't this in my first post? It is fairly obvious that language is
only the expression of the human mind; it does not exist as anything
else (or has no other role, if you prefer.) Statements (verbal ones)
are a function of language (or mathematic symbols; same difference).
It doesn't need any other kind of "support."
[/quote]
You find it obvious that only human-generated statements are
real statements. I do not find it obvious. If we have to
leave it at that, then we are stuck. How are we to move forward?
An example of what I do /not/ find helpful is your next paragraph,
the one just after the quote of me. You: "... if you mean there
is a difference between between the artificially real (man-made)
and the cosmoterrestrially real, there surely is, and a very
important difference." I read this, and think, "Great! I'm
about to find out what this difference is." But instead,
you go off to draw conclusions from this difference, without
telling me what it is. Even if we were in complete agreement,
I would find this disappointing. How am I to follow your logic,
if all you share is the end product of your contemplations?
The easy counter-argument, that it is not their origins that
make machine-generated statements not what you call statements,
would call upon Alan Turing and his famous test.
I would go further, though. Machine-generated and machine-
analysed messages are old hat. The Internet would be impossible
without them. They do everything that human-generated messages
would do. In fact, you could replace one of the routers
with a human being and, apart from slowing down, nothing
would change. Well, no, that's not true. According
to you, the very same packets would now be messages, where
they were not before.
Why?
[quote]
You made clear, and you make clear again below, that you
believe there is a fundamental difference to be found here.
If I may paraphrase you, the difference between statements with
machine and human origins is one of 'provenance', just as a
cabinet could, in principle, be indetectably similar to an
actual antique but, lacking the proper history, can only be
an imitation.
I never mentioned provenance, but if you mean there is a difference
between the artificially real (man-made) and the cosmoterrestrially
real, there surely is, and a very important difference. Because this
great difference is overlooked or considered trivial, we
contemporaries get VERY confused about reality, which, as I pointed
out, comes in these two distinctly different sets. This leads to
delusions, such as "there are multiple realities." In fact, there is
only ONE reality (two subsets of it, artificial and real), but
multiple delusions---because of the implicit confusing of the two.
[/quote]
Once upon a time, several hundred years ago, one could have
concluded that, in order to be a scientist, it was necessary
first to be a European.
And, indeed, some did conclude this. If we could speak to them,
we would point out that, even though the only scientists they
know of are European, being European is not a necessary feature
of being a scientist.
Whatever it is that you find obviously different between
machine- and human-generated messages -- perhaps, the richness
of the context within which the message needs to be interpreted --
I suggest to you that you are looking at these differences,
correlating them with their origins and then concluding the
differences are because of their origins.
Of course, I can't do more than suggest, because you haven't
told me what these differences are, beyond letting me
know that they are obvious and important.
Jim Burns
[...] |
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| James Burns... |
| Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 6:08 pm |
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mrdilligent wrote:
[quote]I found this unsent in my outbox. Perhas this is a post to which Jim
Burns referred.
Date: Sun, Oct 18 2009 11:55 am
From: Jim Burns
mrdilligent wrote:
But we must take care to realize that any statement, in any medium, is
just an EXPRESSION of the mind. There is no such thing as a true
statement. The statement may express a truth in a mind, or a
falsehood, or any combination of these. A statement which expresses
something actual is a "true statement" only because the mind doing the
expresssing is thinking something actual.
[/quote]
I don't think it would be profitable for either of us to spend
our time going down the road suggested by this post. There
seem to be too many things that you find obvious and I do not.
[quote]
I think you oversimplify here what a statement is.
Oversimplify? No; simplify, yes, because it is impossible to go into
even important details on an ng.
In previous ages, I might have mentioned spirits or gods
as counter-examples --
Spirits or gods do not equate with statements. Now you are beginning
to sound like Kevin Murphy. :-)
today, well, what about artificial
intelligence? Even without AI, we have today many automated
processes that make "statements" that are "understood" quite
well by other automated processes.
This ubiquitous contemporary idea makes my blood boil. There is all
this talk about humans and robots: can they work together? Or one or
the other?
We might as well ask whether hammers and/or humans. The robot is just
a TOOL; it is an automated, complex, tool, to be sure, but a tool
nonetheless. AI has NO mind, no real intelllgence. It is just matter
made, by minded man, to follow the mindless rules of matter,
according to a materially encoded set of "glitches" etched into a
material medium to set off the photonic flow inherent in the
computer. We call these encoded "glitches" software, a program for
the computer or robot, etc. to implement. Computers don't understand
one another; their matter simply follows the material "glitches"
provided by other computers. Thus we can have one robot making a tool
becaused a computer lays out the design for it in so many "glitches."
(A simplification for the above reason.)
In my last, I used early Egyptian civ to point out that it ALWAYS
happens as the years and generations pass that people forget that
people made the tool(s), and study the tool(s) intensely, accrediting
to the tool powers that it does not have. Circles or AI.
One of the causes, which we can easily notice today, is the language
WE use to denote what these contraptions do. "Artificial
INTELLIGENCE," "UNDERSTAND," COMMUNICATE and even TALK, LANGUAGE,
and so forth. Why, we have even gone so far as to say that computers
are "smarter" than humans (I wonder why!), and so some day the
computers may take over human doings! And then there is
"consciousness"; do computers have "consciuousness"?
No, because in order to have any level of consciousness---awareness--a
thing or entity must have COGNITION. Machines have NO cognition.
Even a bacterium has cognition.
To simplify, again, a computer is just an elaborate version of our
household circuit panels, only much, much smaller (today), with many
more interconnections. A robot is a complex configuration of matter,
made to do one or more certain tasks (like a hammer or saw at a
simpler level) when guided by some sort of internal or external
computer. The ONLY mind involved is that belonging to man, who
invented the computer/robot because he is lazy about using his own
mind (or at least becomes lazy quickly because he has invented an
artificial brain, much as he one invented artificial hands, etc.).
Computers and robots are fine tools!! But that is all they are,
tools..
[/quote] |
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| mrdilligent... |
| Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 2:28 am |
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Date: Mon, Oct 19 2009 5:07 pm
From: James Burns
Dilligent:
[quote]We come next to ideas: Do they exist? Yes, some as delusions, some
as distortions of reality (man-made or cosmoterrestrial), some as
facts about man-made reality and some as facts about cosmoterrestrial
reality. What we ostentatiously call "mathematics" is an overall
idea, and as such exists---as each of the above categories, depending
on the specific idea. But the existence of ideas is METAPHYSICAL. Not made
of a quark's worth of matter.
So physical things exist, and metaphysical entities exist. Assaying
the truth of the first set is pretty easy; not so with the second
set. This is where Kevin's professor's "logical certainty" comes in
handy.
[/quote]
Burns:
<<You have gone into considerable detail now, letting me
know what your conclusions are. I called what you are doing
"campaigning" because I did not see, and still do not see,
how you arrived at your conclusions--and so I made an analogy
with political campaigns that are long on "Vote for John
Smith!" but short on why I should vote for John Smith.>>
There is NO analogy with political campaigns! Nevertheless, if my
posts are "short" on the "whys," it is only because of what I already
pointed out: the details that go into any apparent conclusion are
MYRIAD, and would fill an entire Web's worth of pp! That, and in some
cases I implicitly assume, not always correctly, that the reader has
had some equivalent experience and/or reading for understanding the
stickum that holds the conclusion together. Surely he should be able
to grasp the self-evident. Perhaps if we continue this discussion
long enough, and we do not forget our own and the other's posts,
enough of the stickum will become explicit.
Besides, may of the "considerable details . . letting me know what
your conclusions are" ARE among the details of how I arrived at my
assertions,. A modicum of bonafide thought would enable you to see
that.
<<You can always excuse yourself from explanations, of course.
However, if you do that, you will pretty much guarantee that
your conclusions will remain only yours.>>
Very peevish, uncharacteristic of you thus far.
I should point out that a discussion or exchange of information is NOT
for mutual agreement! Do I care if someone else agrees with me? Of
course not. Discussions are for LEARNING, and THINKING, and so far, I
have both learned and found grist for my thinking mill in your posts.
I would hope that others do the same from my posts, but it is not for
me to manage.
.. . .
[quote]I would like to think that my outlining here and elsewhere is
OBJECTIVE, and not subjective or partial to any cultural convention.
So if I seem to "assert," it is either for the sake of simplicity (the
thought details that go into such a conclusion are myriad), or it is
because it hasn't occurred to me that the reader may not have gone
through equivalent analyses.
[/quote]
<<With that in mind, would you now outline the advantages of
your sense of "exist" being the sole sense used? Please,
give whatever you consider advantages: moral, mathematical,
anything.>>
As you have by now certainly come to understand, my sense of _exist_
is not singular, nor has it been used singularly in any of my posts
todate. The advantage of understanding that circles, e.g., do not
exist (or are not found, if you prefer) in cosmoterrestriality is
simply the simple, basic truth, and truths mitigate our otherwise
strong contemporary tendency to suffer delusions. Ditto for unicorns
and Sherlock Holmes.
[quote]
I never placed a value judgement for or agaist the circle; only
pointed out that it does not exist (in cosmoterrestrial reality).
[/quote]
<<The usual next step, upon finding that something does not exist,
is to stop using it, stop referring to it, whatever. That doesn't
require a value judgment.>>
WHAAH? Maybe in your world, not in mine. I would continue reading
Sherlock-Holmes stories even though such a person does not exist.
And,, Do you REALLY throw away something simply because you can't
place a value judgment on it? I try to avoid value judgments wherever
possible and feasible.
<<If we are to continue to use the circle in much the same way
as we have been, how would you characterize the difference
-- in how we treat them -- netween existent and non-existent
things?>>
To repeat, knowing the facts, or validity, or truth of something is
knowledge; otherwise it is ignornace, and that is very dangerous.
Let me tell you a personal story that has its counterparts in other
human lives: When I was wee, I began to wonder if Santa Clause really
existed,, as my parents assured me he did. I finally wore my father
down, forcing him to admit there was no such person (but don't tell my
sibling this!) Once I had the TRUTH, I relaxed and thoroughly enjoyed
watching for Santa Clause every Christmas eve.
You see, not knowing causes worry, and believing the untruth causes
dangerous traps (no doubt the source of the worry in those who do not
know one way or the other). But once one has the truth under his
belt, he can use falsehood for safe enjoyment where feasible. |
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| mrdilligent... |
| Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 1:15 pm |
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Date: Wed, Oct 21 2009 5:08 pm
From: James Burns
<<[I have drastically cut down the size of this post. It's
true that I had much I could have said elsewhere, but
I just do not have time to say everyting I would like
to say, and I suspect you do not either.]>>
By God, I think he's got it; I think he's finally got it. |
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| mrdilligent... |
| Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 1:19 pm |
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Date: Tues, Oct 20 2009 8:59 am
From: John Stafford
In article <4ADCE904.7060100 at (no spam) osu.edu>, James Burns <burns.87 at (no spam) osu.edu>
wrote:
[quote]You were talking about the lack of physical true circles.
You mentioned that 'pi' is irrational, which suggested to you
(I gather) the craziness of the things-that-would-be-circles.
[/quote]
<<We usually consider irrational numbers as the Ancient Greeks did:
incapable of being represented using construction (the compass and
straight edge - and in modern terms, a compass alone). IOW,
fractional.>>
Yes, that, too. Unfortunatelhy, most today have no concept of history
before the Vietnam War---in any area. The world began with the
electronic computer and modern what is called "mathematics." |
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| mrdilligent... |
| Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 1:24 pm |
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Date: Tues, Oct 20 2009 8:56 am
From: John Stafford
<<Just one comment perhaps to jog more thought: as mentioned earlier
under
different words was the idea of a human having a history, and an
anticipated future, and certain death - limited lifetime. Human
memory
is not perfect - it gently revises the past, interprets the present,
and
anticipates a future and a demise, all of which shape how we make
'truth', for better or worse - it is all too human.>>
While at the most stringent level this is valid enough, unfortunately
it tends to lead to the pervasively motivating: "Perfection in
anything is unattainable; thus, why bother".
1. At least humans HAVE history; let's get to know it and learn from
its errors (soas not to repeat them).
2. From the standpoint of cosmoterrestrial reality, perfection may be
defined as the constant striving to become better. Evolution is based
on this. Otherwise, we shouldn't be bothering with the "perfection"
of anything, circles or justice or whatever.
3. A lifetime is finite, and finitely short. Let's not fritter it
away (on assumptions, excuses, social conventions, etc.) There is
barely enough time to fit in 1. and 2., above.
.. . .
<<Remember _Les Mis�rables_ and inspector Javert who was the justice
machine.>>
Victor Hugo used metaphor as the basis for his novels. One of the
last to do so. |
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| James Burns... |
| Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 5:27 pm |
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mrdilligent wrote:
[quote]Burns:
[...] because I did not see, and still do not see,
how you arrived at your conclusions--and so I made an analogy
with political campaigns that are long on "Vote for John
Smith!" but short on why I should vote for John Smith.
There is NO analogy with political campaigns!
[/quote]
I did not make the analogy in order to be insulting. It
was the best way I saw to express my mounting frustration
with what -- to me -- looks like a failure to deliver
the reasons behind your claims.
Are we even speaking the same language? You completely
deny my analogy above, and then in /the very next sentence/
explain why it is true.
[quote]Nevertheless,
if my posts are "short" on the "whys," it is only because of
what I already pointed out: the details that go into any
apparent conclusion are MYRIAD, and would fill an entire
Web's worth of pp! That, and in some cases I implicitly assume,
not always correctly, that the reader has had some equivalent
experience and/or reading for understanding the stickum that
holds the conclusion together. Surely he should be able
to grasp the self-evident. Perhaps if we continue this
discussion long enough, and we do not forget our own and
the other's posts, enough of the stickum will become explicit.
[/quote]
Too much to put in a newsgroup post -- I can well believe that.
There aren't many topics that is not true of. But also there
aren't many topics that aren't dealt with in posts in some
fashion or other. Can't you at least try to describe this
evidence?
It's easy to see how anyone could mis-estimate the background
of someone else over this very abstract medium, so lacking in
out usual cues. However, I have said I need those details
to understand several times now. Is it because I lack the
assumed backgound? I find I do not care why. I just know I
need more details. Surely you have updated your assumptions
by now?
Perhaps part of the explanation for our difficulties
communicating is that I regard self-evident facts as a mine-field,
while you apparently see them as true in some inarguable
fashion. It is a standard joke that when someone is
presenting a long, complicated argument, you should look at
the place where he says "... and so, X is obviously true."
That is where the error will be.
[quote]Besides, may of the "considerable details . . letting me know what
your conclusions are" ARE among the details of how I arrived at my
assertions,. A modicum of bonafide thought would enable you to see
that.
[/quote]
I had already read each of your posts carefully before I
responded to them the first time, but I have gone back and
reviewed them. I still do not see any details of how you
arrived at your conclusions.
I hope you do not mean that your praise of the conclusions
themselves is some of the details.
[quote]
You can always excuse yourself from explanations, of course.
However, if you do that, you will pretty much guarantee that
your conclusions will remain only yours.
Very peevish, uncharacteristic of you thus far.
I should point out that a discussion or exchange of information is NOT
for mutual agreement! Do I care if someone else agrees with me? Of
course not. Discussions are for LEARNING, and THINKING, and so far, I
have both learned and found grist for my thinking mill in your posts.
I would hope that others do the same from my posts, but it is not for
me to manage.
. . .
I would like to think that my outlining here and elsewhere is
OBJECTIVE, and not subjective or partial to any cultural convention.
So if I seem to "assert," it is either for the sake of simplicity (the
thought details that go into such a conclusion are myriad), or it is
because it hasn't occurred to me that the reader may not have gone
through equivalent analyses.
With that in mind, would you now outline the advantages of
your sense of "exist" being the sole sense used? Please,
give whatever you consider advantages: moral, mathematical,
anything.
As you have by now certainly come to understand, my sense of _exist_
is not singular, nor has it been used singularly in any of my posts
to date.
[/quote]
I see where I could have expressed myself better.
Please ignore references to your sense(s) of "exist" as
singular and replace them with references to them being
restrictive. I think I have a pretty good case that it
is restrictive. In particular, you refer to circles as
not existing -- isn't this restrictive?
That is to say: what advantages are there to regard
circles (as one example) as not existing? It is not
enough to say "Because they don't!" I am satisfied that
"exist" as I use it has plenty of room for circles
to exist. If there are problems with the way I use it,
you have to tell me what they are.
[quote]The advantage of understanding that circles, e.g., do not
exist (or are not found, if you prefer) in cosmoterrestriality is
simply the simple, basic truth, and truths mitigate our otherwise
strong contemporary tendency to suffer delusions. Ditto for unicorns
and Sherlock Holmes.
I never placed a value judgement for or agaist the circle; only
pointed out that it does not exist (in cosmoterrestrial reality).
The usual next step, upon finding that something does not exist,
is to stop using it, stop referring to it, whatever. That doesn't
require a value judgment.
WHAAH? Maybe in your world, not in mine. I would continue reading
Sherlock-Holmes stories even though such a person does not exist.
[/quote]
In my world, Sherlock Holmes exists within Sir Conan Doyle's stories
(as well as other places, movies, television, imaginations).
It is not the same kind of existence that you or I have, but it
allows me to answer questions like "Did Sherlock Holmes have a
mother?" or "Do unicorns have five legs?" Can you do as much?
[quote]And,, Do you REALLY throw away something simply because you
can't place a value judgment on it? I try to avoid value
judgments wherever possible and feasible.
[/quote]
I think we are using "value judgment" to mean very different
things. If you want to continue along this line, I think we
must clarify what each of us means.
[quote]If we are to continue to use the circle in much the same way
as we have been, how would you characterize the difference
-- in how we treat them -- netween existent and non-existent
things?
To repeat, knowing the facts, or validity, or truth of something is
knowledge; otherwise it is ignornace, and that is very dangerous.
[/quote]
It is hard for me to see what could be dangerous about treating
circles as though they exist when they do not, if, in all other
ways besides speaking of them, you would treat them the same
whether or not they exist.
[quote]
Let me tell you a personal story that has its counterparts in other
human lives: When I was wee, I began to wonder if Santa Clause really
existed,, as my parents assured me he did. I finally wore my father
down, forcing him to admit there was no such person (but don't tell my
sibling this!) Once I had the TRUTH, I relaxed and thoroughly enjoyed
watching for Santa Clause every Christmas eve.
You see, not knowing causes worry, and believing the untruth causes
dangerous traps (no doubt the source of the worry in those who do not
know one way or the other). But once one has the truth under his
belt, he can use falsehood for safe enjoyment where feasible.
[/quote]
Jim Burns |
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| Michael Gordge... |
| Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 10:16 pm |
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On Oct 18, 1:50 am, George Dance <georgedanc... at (no spam) yahoo.ca> wrote:
[quote]I've been recently thinking about one possible criterion of
ontological existence:
[/quote]
What makes you believe that existence changes in meaning just because
you have chosen to preceed it with the adjective ontological? How
stupid can you get?
Hint; Existence can not be denied without contradiction, it is
therefore the axiom of all knowkedge.
Your mission, should you ever choose to awaken from your Kantian
slumber, is to give what is claimed to exist its very own non-
contradicting single seperate identity, and its best that you start
that identification process with a sensation from one of your five
senses, eyes ears nose hands skin. Can you poke it with a stick, does
it move, does it smell, does it make a noise, or is it existing no-
where but in the mind, e.g. the god crap, the leftist retard's the
greater good scam.
MG |
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| mrdilligent... |
| Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 3:18 am |
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Date: Wed, Oct 21 2009 5:08 pm
From: James Burns
<<An example of what I do /not/ find helpful is your next paragraph,
the one just after the quote of me. You: "... if you mean there
is a difference between between the artificially real (man-made)
and the cosmoterrestrially real, there surely is, and a very
important difference." I read this, and think, "Great! I'm
about to find out what this difference is." But instead,
you go off to draw conclusions from this difference, without
telling me what it is. Even if we were in complete agreement,
I would find this disappointing. How am I to follow your logic,
if all you share is the end product of your contemplations?>>
I can understand (sort of) when a contemporary is unfamiliar with
history, but I cannot fathom one whe doesn't understand the self-
evident.
(By "one" and "you," I of course refer to what is said in posts by
"Jim Burns.") Do you mean to tell me that you don't know the
difference between a knife, cell phone, computer, automobile, washing
machine, etc.---human technology, and artificial---and a living tree,
a raspberry bush, a bird, a bee, a sky cloud---what existed long
before humans ever walked this planet, let alone became civilized and
technological, and thus are cosmoterrestrial??? Do you really mean to
ask "what is the difference"??? Do you really need that difference
EXPLAINED?
Just to anticipate what may run through your mind, OF COURSE the
basic materials used to make the artificially real are themselves
cosmoterrestrially real; man must start with matter that "God"
wrought. Even "liquid metal" and other carbon-fused alloys are based
on what IS given. Plastics, for another example, are man-made---
artificially real---but must be made from material that is
cosmoterrestrially real to start with. |
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| mrdilligent... |
| Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 3:25 am |
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On Oct 22, 7:27�pm, James Burns <burns... at (no spam) osu.edu> wrote:
[quote]I did not make the analogy in order to be insulting. It
was the best way I saw to express my mounting frustration
with what -- to me -- looks like a failure to deliver
the reasons behind your claims.
[/quote]
No insult taken. This is just a discussion.
Ok, you seem unable to grasp the self-evident. This tells me that the
contemporary culture has totally confused you. I was born to a
different American culture, one in which HISTORY was important;
history going all the way back to the dawn of evolution. |
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| James Burns... |
| Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 11:09 am |
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mrdilligent wrote:
[quote]Date: Wed, Oct 21 2009 5:08 pm
From: James Burns
An example of what I do /not/ find helpful is your next paragraph,
the one just after the quote of me. You: "... if you mean there
is a difference between between the artificially real (man-made)
and the cosmoterrestrially real, there surely is, and a very
important difference." I read this, and think, "Great! I'm
about to find out what this difference is." But instead,
you go off to draw conclusions from this difference, without
telling me what it is. Even if we were in complete agreement,
I would find this disappointing. How am I to follow your logic,
if all you share is the end product of your contemplations?
I can understand (sort of) when a contemporary is unfamiliar with
history, but I cannot fathom one whe doesn't understand the self-
evident.
[/quote]
I get the impression from this that you do not intend to
explain yourself any better than you already have.
Therefore, I have no realistic expectation to understand
you better.
I also do not expect you to come to a better understanding
of me, frankly. It's not that I think I'm an exceptionally
deep thinker -- it just doesn't look like you're interested
in anything outside your self-contained ideology.
But maybe I'm wrong.
[quote]
(By "one" and "you," I of course refer to what is said in posts by
"Jim Burns.") Do you mean to tell me that you don't know the
difference between a knife, cell phone, computer, automobile, washing
machine, etc.---human technology, and artificial---and a living tree,
a raspberry bush, a bird, a bee, a sky cloud---what existed long
before humans ever walked this planet, let alone became civilized and
technological, and thus are cosmoterrestrial??? Do you really mean to
ask "what is the difference"??? Do you really need that difference
EXPLAINED?
[/quote]
There are many differences, some important, some unimportant.
Which one or ones are you referring to?
As it stands, I need you to explain why this difference
or differences have the consequences you claim for them.
A good test case would be "Given a difference X between human
technology and natural objects, circles do not exist
because of Y." and you would supply X and Y.
Maybe you're right, and once you have told me what
X is, I would immediately see what Y was.
[quote]
Just to anticipate what may run through your mind, OF COURSE the
basic materials used to make the artificially real are themselves
cosmoterrestrially real; man must start with matter that "God"
wrought. Even "liquid metal" and other carbon-fused alloys are based
on what IS given. Plastics, for another example, are man-made---
artificially real---but must be made from material that is
cosmoterrestrially real to start with.
[/quote]
Actually, what really has run through my mind is that
the more important differences between human and natural
objects (important measured by their consequences) tend
to be less important (the importance of these differences
now measured by how well they distinguish objects with
human or natural origins into their correct categories.)
I won't pursue this line of argument right now, as it may
turn out to be pointless, once you reveal which difference X
you are referring to.
Jim Burns |
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| James Burns... |
| Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 11:09 am |
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mrdilligent wrote:
[quote]On Oct 22, 7:27�pm, James Burns <burns... at (no spam) osu.edu> wrote:
I did not make the analogy in order to be insulting. It
was the best way I saw to express my mounting frustration
with what -- to me -- looks like a failure to deliver
the reasons behind your claims.
No insult taken. This is just a discussion.
Ok, you seem unable to grasp the self-evident. This tells
me that the contemporary culture has totally confused you.
I was born to a different American culture, one in which
HISTORY was important; history going all the way back to
the dawn of evolution.
[/quote]
How lucky for me that you took no insult.
However, I was not lucky enough, since you still have
not explained yourself. Your pointing out that I am unable
to grasp the self-evident, that you are wiser than I am,
and so on does nothing to make your theories clearer.
Why not just explain yourself?
Jim Burns |
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