Philosophy Now Forum

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Mon Sep 24, 2018 2:20 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Sep 24, 2018 2:18 pm Whoa. An abstract noun is a ... noun, which is a ... word, which is a ... spoken or written sign.

You do understand that signs aren't supernatural things, right? How bad is your condition?

Most signs are spoken or written. That is what language is.

The human condition is pretty bad, but my condition is slightly less worse than yours

I don’t even know what ‘supernatural’ means...

It is in the same box as ‘truth’ and ‘god’. A signifier without a signified.

Ohhhkay. (Backs away a little nervously. Time to move on.)

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Sep 24, 2018 2:26 pm

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Mon Sep 24, 2018 2:20 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Sep 24, 2018 2:18 pm Whoa. An abstract noun is a ... noun, which is a ... word, which is a ... spoken or written sign.

You do understand that signs aren't supernatural things, right? How bad is your condition?

Most signs are spoken or written. That is what language is.

The human condition is pretty bad, but my condition is slightly less worse than yours

I don’t even know what ‘supernatural’ means...

It is in the same box as ‘truth’ and ‘god’. A signifier without a signified.

Ohhhkay. (Backs away a little nervously. Time to move on.)

I am willing to be convinced.

Could you give me an example of something ‘supernatural’? Or a testable/falsifiable definition for it?

Help me understand that word in something relatable?

It is pretty hard to understand your meaning when you keep using null-pointers OR synonyms to define stuff.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_pointer

Signifiers are pointers.

God -> supernatural -> @null-pointer
Truth -> @null-pointer

Abstract nouns ->words -> spoken or written symbol
Language -> words -> spoken or written symbols

Language is abstract or abstractions are language?

God is good or good is god? (Your words)

I keep showing you that your language is broken, you keep not believing me...

This is what happens when non-empiricist attempt to “speak truth”. They over-complicate everything to the point it becomes esoteric. Giving ironists all the rope to hang you with.

Before you can speak truth first you must LEARN some truth. There isn’t a whole lot of truth to be found in books.

Without praxis you are just a loud mouth who isn’t even willing to risk $500 to have their beliefs challenged.

Stay in philosophy. Before you break something important and cause harm in the ‘real world’.

Ginkgo wrote: ↑Mon Sep 24, 2018 2:09 am If we are oblivious to some fact then it goes without saying that we have no knowledge of it.

Manifestly. But both are epistemological issues, not ontological ones. Things can actually, really exist without us knowing they do, as I'm sure you would recognize.

Immanuel Can wrote: This is the epistemological issue. And you're right...if God had not spoken, then that is precisely all we would have. And belief either way would be completely gratuitous.

But has God spoken?

As far as I know he hasn't spoken to anyone.

A fair and an honest answer. I can believe you fully. But again, the fact that one person doesn't know something does not tell us whether or not it exists, far less whether or not others do know it.

Immanuel Can wrote: The Euthyphro Question is very easily solvable. If you read the relevant passage, you'll see that Socrates himself specifies explicitly that it is a problem only inherent to Polytheism.

That's not true, it is also relevant to monotheism.

It's not. Socrates explicitly states his premise is Polytheism, and that it is ONLY because of the conflict among "the gods" over the conception of what is "good" that the problem arises at all. If you read it, you'll see it.

Here: http://www.indiana.edu/~p374/Euthyphro.pdf You'll find it at the top of section III, for example.

The Euthyphro Dilemma is alive and well in academic circles.

Not by anyone who's actually read and thought about it, instead of merely delighting that he thinks he's found a conundrum that can baffle Theism, and then running off to make that use of it. Such rejoice too early -- the Euthyphro Dilemma has been asked and answered repeatedly. But people hang onto it because they hope it is unresolvable...

But it's just not.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Sep 24, 2018 4:13 pm Things can actually, really exist without us knowing they do, as I'm sure you would recognize.

Tautology. Things can also really not exist even with you knowing they do.

Like my favorite restaurant at which I tried to have dinner last night, but it had closed down 2 months prior, and a new one had taken its place!

The distinction is merely one of fresh vs stale knowledge. How do you tell the difference without verification?

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Mon Sep 24, 2018 4:33 pm
Things can also really not exist even with you knowing they do.

Of course. That follows.

But you are using words to mean what you want them to mean, not what I want them to mean. So, what if I choose to interpret your words as meaning, "Oh, IC, you are a genius"? After all, language is infinitely flexible (according to your view) and words only mean what the one with the power (presumably, at the moment) chooses to read out of them...

And I thank you for the compliment -- though, language being what it is (according to your earlier claims) -- I cannot count on what you will interpret from that.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Sep 24, 2018 4:47 pm After all, language is infinitely flexible (according to your view) and words only mean what the one with the power (presumably, at the moment) chooses to read out of them...

You are catching on. Informal language is infinitely flexible. I can CHOOSE how to (mis)interpret anything. As can you. Power is not necessary. Only an agenda (teleology?)

Unless we both CHOOSE to converge towards consensus, then we can disagree indefinitely. QED Philosophy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aumann%27 ... nt_theorem

So rational beings would soon recognise that disagreements are symptomatic of a consensus problem?
Does that make you irrational?

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Mon Sep 24, 2018 4:56 pm Unless we both CHOOSE to converge towards consensus, then we can disagree indefinitely.

But how can we "choose" to "converge," when words are infinitely flexible, and we can disagree indefinitely?

The real problem is this: that in discounting language, you are sawing at the branch of the tree upon which you are yourself resting. You use language to debunk language. But when you succeed in sawing off that branch, you will yourself fall. Your communication to me depends entirely on some system of shared symbols with a transferrable reference: absent that, you and I can't talk at all.

So if language is just a pattern of unique symbol systems squirted out by the utterer, we can't "choose to converge." To "converge" is to meet at a common reference point. But that is the very thing you say that, because of the infinite flexibility of language, we can never do.

This is why Derrida is nearly incomprehensible to most people. It's not by accident -- it's because for every inch he gained by playing loose games with language, he lost exactly the same inch in coherence and efficacy of communication. It was literally one-for-one. The ultimate outcome of thoroughgoing Postmodern language games is mere babble. And there is no way to "agree" about what words mean, when words mean only what the issuer or percipient decides they will mean at the moment, and they don't have any common reference point.

But again, I choose to interpret the whole substance of your words as "Oh, IC, you are a genius." And again, I thank you.

Do you object?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Sep 24, 2018 5:28 pm But how can we "choose" to "converge," when words are infinitely flexible, and we can disagree indefinitely.

Because the variable that makes them infinitely flexible is choice.

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Mon Sep 24, 2018 5:37 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Sep 24, 2018 5:28 pm But how can we "choose" to "converge," when words are infinitely flexible, and we can disagree indefinitely.

Because the variable that makes them infinitely flexible is choice.

But I can't tell whether I'm "choosing" to see your meaning, or I'm just "choosing" to invent one of my own. "Choice" doesn't give me that information.

Remember that there are, in an infinitely flexible language, no reference points by which I can test to discover whether or not I'm being fair to your intended meaning. I can't even know what it is. So "choice" won't save the day there.

But notice now, that you and I are talking as if we have common reference points. But why are we doing that, when you have insisted we have none? How do we even know that's what we are doing? And how will you argue back, when nothing you say is anchored to any objective reference?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Sep 24, 2018 5:44 pm But I can't tell whether I'm "choosing" to see your meaning, or I'm just "choosing" to invent one of my own. "Choice" doesn't give me that information.

So I can kick you in the shin and ask you if you want me to do it again. I think I can soon get you to understand the 'no harm' principle empirically.

I am sure we could evolve language and precision soon enough...

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Mon Sep 24, 2018 5:46 pm I am sure we could evolve language and precision soon enough...

Then what you said about the indeterminacy of language has been now debunked...by you.

Now you are saying that we DO have ways of establishing common reference points, and "precise" linguistic ones, at that.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Sep 24, 2018 5:49 pm

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Mon Sep 24, 2018 5:46 pm I am sure we could evolve language and precision soon enough...

Then what you said about the indeterminacy of language has been now debunked...by you.

Now you are saying that we DO have ways of establishing common reference points, and "precise" linguistic ones, at that.

Fallacy of gray.

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Mon Sep 24, 2018 5:50 pm Fallacy of gray.

You keep saying this phrase, and it keeps being completely uninformative of anything...by your own account, too.