DaveDodo007... I mean... Rationalskepticism,lol.

[Mr.Samsa]

You were using snarky throwaway lines rather than arguing your position so I thought I'd take a break and use your same lines.

No I wasn't. I was pointing out that you are making assertions (often single line arguments) without any reasoning to back them up. There's nothing snarky about that.

And your response is to go juvenile?? Well done. How about you actually address the questions and answer them with more than empty assertions?

The point you're missing is that you're doing the thing you're accusing me of (when I'm actually the one answering questions with substantial responses).

The underlying point was that you're not providing any reasons as to why you're right or think the way you do, you're simply rejecting what I say without any justification. What the fuck am I supposed to do about that?

I'm not the one making positive claims. You are explaining metaphysics to us, and we are providing rebuttals to points that appear to us to make no sense or have holes in their logic. It's up to you to address these, or go away. We don't have to provide evidence of anything, as we aren't making positive claims.

You are making positive claims, you are saying things like "logic can't access reality" - that's a positive claim. That's how discussions work. I make a claim and I have the burden of proof, if you reject my claim then you now have the burden of proof. It's up to you to address these problems, or go away.

No, you have to explain why you think it's an empty statement

I have repeatedly. Answering a complex question with one sentence is the very epitome of empty statements. You've done it regularly in these two threads.

No you really haven't, you have simply repeated the empty assertion that you don't think logic can access reality and you don't think that claims about reality are claims about reality.

and why you think we can know nothing about reality, or that logic can't do this. So far you've just been asserting over and over again that it can't. Show your working.

I don't have to show my working, Samsa. That's the null hypothesis. You're a scientist, you know how this works. YOU are the one claiming that we can access information about the underlying reality (i.e. potentially something distinct from what we see with our own eyes and instruments). It's up to YOU to prove something exists that we can't see with our own eyes and instruments. If you posited that unicorns where real and I said we know absolutely zero about unicorns, would it make sense for you to claim I have to show my working? Of course not. That would be idiotic. You know this. Stop playing games.

You do need to show your working as you are the one rejecting the claim and then making a positive claim of your own, if you can't defend it then you need to drop it. This is how honest and charitable discussions go - I make a claim and I back it up with a whole lot of reasoning and evidence, and then the ball is in your court. If you want to reject what I've said then that's fine but you need to give reasons for rejecting it.

Otherwise what am I supposed to do? You haven't told me why you reject it, why you hold the positions you do, what flaws you think are in my arguments, etc. We'd reach a stalemate with me doing all that work and you saying, "I reject it!". It's the exact same thing in science - if I present a whole lot of evidence for the theory then my job is done. You can reject it but you need to present evidence or reasoning as to why you reject it. You can't simply say that you reject it.

I did show my working and you are still ignoring it. Re-read the discussion where I introduced the thought experiment. If empiricism cannot explain or describe reality if we lived in an idealist world (or solipsist, or dualist, etc etc) and it can only describe reality if reality happened to align with an empiricist view, then it is functionally useless.

It would be a broken clock approach to understanding reality, in the sense that most of the time it's useless but if the time just happened to align with where the hands are stuck then it could give us the right time.

This is primary school logic, Samsa. None of that shows that science is a terrible method for investigating reality. Why? BECAUSE WE HAVE NO CLUE WHAT REALITY IS. Once again, you are making a positive statement about what reality is (i.e. you are positively claiming that it is not what we physically see/measure). YOU have to provide evidence to back up your claim, or be summarily dismissed. Whatever underlying reality is, we have no way at present of knowing whether science is good, bad, average, or anything. This is simple stuff. On one hand you get all riled up at people who positively claim that science is a good method for investigating reality, but on the other hand you commit the diametrically opposite failure. You positive assert that science is crap at determining reality. You simply have NO way of knowing this. But if you do, go ahead and show us how science is definitively a crap method for accessing reality. To prove that, you will have to somehow prove that underlying reality ISN'T what science is measuring how. Good luck with that.

You haven't dealt with anything I've said. Are you honestly telling me that if you had a clock which could only be right twice a day by accident, that you'd consider it a valid tool for measuring time? That's the only conclusion that can be reached based on your paragraph above.

If you don't agree that a method which can only give correct results through purely accidental means, and in a way where we have no actual way of knowing if its right or not, is a terrible method THEN SHOW YOUR FUCKING WORKING.

I have shown my working, time and time again. As I've just done again above. You are struggling with primary school level logic.

You have done no such thing! You've even argued just above that you specifically haven't shown working because you don't think you have to! Come on, keep the lies straight at least.

...Are you fucking serious now? I argued that it was a terrible method to use. You disagreed. What the fuck am I supposed to conclude here?

For a start, you should dispense with the false dichotomies. The options aren't just terrible and good. Or even terrible and good and average and ok and moderately informative. There's an agnostic position that I've made clear numerous times to you. How about you start with what I have written, hey?

Nobody has said that there are only two options of terrible and good, I said terrible and valid. If something is valid then it can be good, not so good, average, moderately informative, etc. It makes no sense to hold an "agnostic" position for the reason I've described above but that's irrelevant as you said that it could be a valid approach and that's what I responded to.

Except you did say it. That's what this whole discussion is about. You argued that empiricism could be a valid way of telling us things about reality, I explained exactly how and why it wasn't. And now you're saying that you weren't saying that it could be a valid method to use? Seriously?

Come the fuck on.

This is why you get pinged with the misrepresentation thing all the time. You either are deliberately misrepresenting or you can't parse simple English. I said it COULD POTENTIALLY be valid, not THAT IT WAS. So yes, how about you come the fuck on and learn to read?

Here's what I said you dishonest cunt: " I said that empiricism has the potential to perhaps provide us with clues about the true nature of reality. Not that it must, or even does." That looks absolutely nothing like the shameful misrepresentation you've presented above. No wonder you defend Strontium Dog with his idiotic misrepresentations like this.

So let's get this straight. You said: "it COULD POTENTIALLY be valid", and I described your position as: "You argued that empiricism could be a valid way of telling us things about reality".

Where is the misrepresentation? At no point have I said that you argued "THAT IT WAS", I've made it explicitly clear that you argued that it "could" be a valid method.

So misrepresentation and dishonesty? Sure, but not from me.

They aren't assumptions, they are logical arguments/evidence. They give us information about what claims we should lend more weight to - for example, if two ideas are identical in every way except one posits an unnecessary entity, then we can argue that we should lend more weight to the one that doesn't multiply beyond necessity. This argument can be based on a whole host of factors but at the end of the day it swings us towards one over the other.

Once again, this tells us nothing about reality. Parsimony tells us absolutely nothing about anything, other than practicalities in investigating ideas. And they are assumptions the way you use them. "They give us information about what claims we should lend more weight to - for example, if two ideas are identical in every way except one posits an unnecessary entity, then we can argue that we should lend more weight to the one that doesn't multiply beyond necessity." That employs an assumption, not a statement reflecting any underlying reality.

It tells us which idea is more likely to be true, and it's not an assumption because it's a fully supported logical argument.

But why do you think it can't tell us anything about reality? You haven't explained yourself there,

I don't need to explain myself, Samsa. I'm not the one making a positive statement. I'm employing the null hypothesis. You're a scientist, you know this stuff. I no more have to explain how we don't know about something we can't see/touch/measure, than I have to explain how we don't know about unicorns.

You are making a positive statement. You said that it can't tell us anything about reality, that's a positive statement. You can't get away with bullshit like that in science - if I say "Test X can't tell us anything about phenomenon Y" then I'm making a positive statement that needs to be supported. I'd get laughed out of a conference if someone presented evidence for the validity of a new test and I simply said: "That test can't tell us anything about Y and I don't need to support that because you're the one making the claim".

A neutral statement that doesn't require supporting is something like: "I don't know if it can tell us anything about reality" or "I'm not currently convinced that it can tell us something about reality". In those cases you don't need to support them but after I presented my reasoning and evidence you would be forced to either accept it or explain why you reject them.

especially since my examples show that it does tell us a lot of useful things.

"useful things". I specifically want you to back up your claims that metaphysics can tell us something about underlying reality. What does this underlying reality look/function like? How do we interact in our physical experience with this underlying reality? I wish you'd finally see what I am getting at. All metaphysics tells us about is the logical validity of arguments. It says absolutely nothing about underlying reality. If you think it does, then show us what it is saying about underlying reality. Start with the above questions if you like.

I gave you an example of logical impossibilities telling us what reality doesn't look like - that's hugely useful!

As for what reality looks like, I don't know, I'm not particularly interested in metaphysics. The general consensus is a realist position like physicalism, so reality is essentially what we see according to various arguments (like the unreasonable effectiveness of science and the problems associated with various dualist positions).

By definition it's true. If you say "logic can't tell us anything about reality" then you are, by definition, making a claim about reality (i.e. that it can't be understood/investigated through the use of logic).

Gaah, this is basic logic that you are failing at, Samsa. You aren't making a claim about reality. You are making a claim about the investigation of reality. Not reality itself. Surely you can finally see this difference??

But it's a claim about reality - saying that reality can't be understood by logic tells us something about reality, specifically that it can't be understood by logic. If I discover that microbes can't be observed with the naked eye then that is a statement about microbes, specifically that they are smaller than what can be observed with the eye. With logic and reality it tells us that reality is of such a nature that logic is incapable alone of understanding or accessing it.

I quote the entirety of my post and the entirety of the relevant part of your post. You want me to post the entirety of your post preceding mine as well? What about my post before that? There has to be a limit, and I tend to quote more relevant sections than most other people - to the point where it pisses people off that I'm providing so much context.

Just do what most people do in a complex discussion, quote the maximum number of iterations that is allowable (I think it's five). There's simply no reason not to. By not doing that, you make it interminably hard to go and find exactly who said what and in what context. If I was being unkind I would say that you do this so that your repeated misrepresentations can't be so easily identified. To be honest, it seems like a fair hypothesis to me. You've got a long track record of this shit.

Jesus christ, that would make for impossibly long comments that are difficult to read and edit, and would be a complete shit show! And given your track record of fucking up when accusing me of misrepresentation, I'll take your claim of misrepresentation with a grain of salt.

With that said, everything you need context-wise is in that comment. Your reply was based directly on my comment and had nothing to do with the preceding discussion.

I'm not just talking about that comment. I'm talking about most of your comments. In a complex discussion, it's much more beneficial to see the full context and see exactly who said what when.

And no, the full context isn't there. I can't see what your original statement was, so I can't judge at this point whether your rebuttal of my accusation of circularity is correct. I have to go and find your original quote and then assess your rebuttal. Just quote the full context, ffs. It's not hard.

The full context was there. Whenever the previous comment is needed then I leave it in there. Your accusation of circularity was based entirely on that single post and it had nothing to do with the previous post.

And worse case scenario, scroll back an inch or two up the page. For fuck's sake, stop being a lazy shit.

It's all quoted there. If you can't respond then just say so, don't pretend that it's anyone else's fault that you were shown up.

Lol. You fail shockingly at basic logic, Samsa. As I just explained, without your original quote, which is what we are discussing here, a proper assessment of your rebuttal can't be made. This is basic logic. It really is no wonder that you can't understand what our objections to your assertions are.

As I demonstrated, the previous post was unnecessary as it was irrelevant to the comment. You're making a positive claim here, got any evidence?!

There's no fucking "gotcha" moment, you are making claims and I am refuting them. That's how a discussion goes. If you're upset that I keep showing you to be wrong then explain how you're right or how I'm mistaken, don't fall back on some empty claim that it's a "gotcha" moment.

You are shocking at this logic game, man. You haven't shown how I am wrong. YOU'VE MADE A BARE ASSERTION THAT SUBSTANCE DUALISM IS ILLOGICAL. Until you show your working, that is simply a bare assertion. C'mon, you are smart enough to know this. I'm not one of the regular chumps you argue with at ratskep. You need to lift your game.

Where have I claimed that substance dualism is illogical? Ah, can't find it? That would be because I haven't said that and the discussion of substance dualism was unrelated to the point I was making, which was why I didn't include that quoted comment.

To recap: you claimed that without empirical evidence there is no way to prefer one option over another. I present two options, one is logically impossible and the other is logically possible. There is no empirical information on the two options. Your position says that you have to remain agnostic on the probability of either being true, I'm saying that this is fucking ridiculous and even you must recognise that you can prefer the logically possible one over the logically impossible one.

I can't believe I have to explain this to you. I clearly explained in my last post (and in the other thread) that you haven't shown why substance dualism is illogical. This is basic stuff. You are jumping at imaginary shadows. Lift your game.

I haven't claimed that it is illogical so why would I attempt to show that? What were you saying about those shadows?

You'd need to tell me what you consider as "important". It's just an academic field trying to answer questions that they find interesting, I don't see why it needs any "importance" beyond that.

It's important in the sense that it has it's own field. As I keep jokingly saying, there's no field for logical enquiry into picnic tables. This is obviously because it isn't an important field. I want to know why I should care about what metaphysics has given us beyond an explication of the various philosophical stances in regards to science and observation etc. This extra "reality" stuff, is not impressing me. I see no evidence concerning underlying reality. All I see is logical reasoning. As I said, I don't need the field of metaphysics to pull apart shonky logic.

No, I imagine there is no field for the logical investigation of picnic tables because nobody is interested in the question. If it interested enough people then it would become a field, regardless of how important it is.

As for your positive claims at the end there, you'll have to show your working.

It is a claim about reality, it even uses the word "reality" in the claim. Metaphysics attempts to understand what kinds of things we can and cannot know about reality, and one of those things is whether it's even possible to know anything about reality. That's a claim about reality. Literally.

This is why I put the qualification earlier in this my previous post that I'm not interested in the trivially obvious aspect of metaphysics - that being that it literally involves the word "reality". That's idiotic. For the nth time, I want to know about these fantastical claims you make about metaphysics telling us something about underlying reality (i.e. the thing, not the fucking word ).

And things that reality cannot be are claims about reality.

That you don't like the word "metaphysics" for some reason?

No, that you make baseless claims about the field. You keep claiming that it tells us something about reality. All it does is tell us about the validity of investigations into reality. That tells us sweet fuck all about reality itself. This is a fucking exceedingly simple point. Start getting it.

I'll start "getting it" when you can start providing refutations or challenges to my points. If you can't challenge my claims, then why would I accept your positive claims there?

I've given you so many examples now.

No you haven't. You've given me three examples, and I've ignored the last one due to time and expediency. The first two tells us nothing whatsoever about reality. They are philosophical tools of practical value to researchers and thinkers. This has been explained to you. You haven't rebutted this point. You just keep saying the same original bare assertion over and over.

I've given a fuckload more than 3 examples. And why did you pick 3? Are you again conflating the examples of metaphysical evidence with metaphysical claims?!

At this point if you don't want to understand it then there's no point me explaining it again and again. I'll try once more and that's it: if something is logically impossible then does that tell us something about reality? Of course it does. It tells us what reality can't look like.

NO IT DOESN'T! And i've rebutted this before and you haven't addressed it. You apparently don't know anything about logic. The underlying truth of a logical statement is only as good as its premises. If the premises are assumptions, then the truth of a logically coherent equation is only relevant to the condition of the assumptions. This is fucking basic stuff! You can't possibly hope to explain a subject that deals in logic if you don't understand the basics of logic itself.

Bare assertion, show your working.

If you disagree, show your working. One line responses don't count.

And juvenile shit doesn't count as well. I've explained my workings over and over again. I haven't made any one line assertions (other than presenting the null hypothesis). If you think I have, and you want to try and back your shit up, then show them.

You haven't shown your working at all! Your entire responses to me have consisted of single line empty assertions!

[JimC]

fucking jesus, that's a quote balls up. Don't reply to that till I fix the quotes. It could take some time.

rEv, I'm worried that you are turning into a left wing version of CES!

[DaveDodo007]

Jesus Fucking Christ, what was that post by Mr. Samsa. I knew there is a reason that I hate philosophy, I think him and Evr are trying to turn this place into ratskep but with cooler members; obviously.

[JimC]

Jesus Fucking Christ, what was that post by Mr. Samsa. I knew there is a reason that I hate philosophy, I think him and Evr are trying to turn this place into ratskep but with cooler members; obviously.

Your special thread has become a nightmare of epistemological madness!

[Mr.Samsa]

Jesus Fucking Christ, what was that post by Mr. Samsa. I knew there is a reason that I hate philosophy, I think him and Evr are trying to turn this place into ratskep but with cooler members; obviously.

Rev is complaining that my posts don't include enough quotes in them - he wants my posts to be even longer...

[Brian Peacock]

[pErvinalia]

samsa, you are doing it again. Quote the full quote stream so I don't have to spend all fucking night trying to find who said what and when across two concurrent threads. Seriously, it's fucking bad form to not do this once you've been asked (multiple times).

edit:" I'm currently in the middle of another gigantic reply and I'm flicking between threads and pages to try and find something that you were too lazy to quote. And it's worse than it sounds, as you've quoted me saying (paraphrasing) "You don't even know when you've replied to something or not". You've rebutted that by essentially saying I'm lying and to quote where you said you replied to something but you didn't. The problem is that because you haven't included the full quote stream I have no idea what the question was that you haven't responded too. So I have to interminably flick through the threads and read every fucking post and then read your replies to determine which one it was that you didn't reply to. If this was ratskep, I could just click on "wrote" and it would take me to it. But we can't do that here. So quote the full quote stream, for fucks sake.

[Mr.Samsa]

samsa, you are doing it again. Quote the full quote stream so I don't have to spend all fucking night trying to find who said what and when across two concurrent threads. Seriously, it's fucking bad form to not do this once you've been asked (multiple times).

Seriously, no. The posts are monstrously long as it is so I'm only going to include relevant posts. Don't be so damn lazy.

edit:" I'm currently in the middle of another gigantic reply and I'm flicking between threads and pages to try and find something that you were too lazy to quote. And it's worse than it sounds, as you've quoted me saying (paraphrasing) "You don't even know when you've replied to something or not". You've rebutted that by essentially saying I'm lying and to quote where you said you replied to something but you didn't. The problem is that because you haven't included the full quote stream I have no idea what the question was that you haven't responded too. So I have to interminably flick through the threads and read every fucking post and then read your replies to determine which one it was that you didn't reply to. If this was ratskep, I could just click on "wrote" and it would take me to it. But we can't do that here. So quote the full quote stream, for fucks sake.

But seriously, your comments are getting a little crazy. So what if you have to flick back an inch up the page to justify your claim that I'm lying or whatever? If it's so much hard work then maybe don't make claims you can't support.

[DaveDodo007]

samsa, you are doing it again. Quote the full quote stream so I don't have to spend all fucking night trying to find who said what and when across two concurrent threads. Seriously, it's fucking bad form to not do this once you've been asked (multiple times).

edit:" I'm currently in the middle of another gigantic reply and I'm flicking between threads and pages to try and find something that you were too lazy to quote. And it's worse than it sounds, as you've quoted me saying (paraphrasing) "You don't even know when you've replied to something or not". You've rebutted that by essentially saying I'm lying and to quote where you said you replied to something but you didn't. The problem is that because you haven't included the full quote stream I have no idea what the question was that you haven't responded too. So I have to interminably flick through the threads and read every fucking post and then read your replies to determine which one it was that you didn't reply to. If this was ratskep, I could just click on "wrote" and it would take me to it. But we can't do that here. So quote the full quote stream, for fucks sake.

Please mummy, make the bad men stop.

[pErvinalia]

You were using snarky throwaway lines rather than arguing your position so I thought I'd take a break and use your same lines.

No I wasn't. I was pointing out that you are making assertions (often single line arguments) without any reasoning to back them up. There's nothing snarky about that.

And your response is to go juvenile?? Well done. How about you actually address the questions and answer them with more than empty assertions?

The point you're missing is that you're doing the thing you're accusing me of (when I'm actually the one answering questions with substantial responses).

Samsa, do a fucking word count. You're high.

The underlying point was that you're not providing any reasons as to why you're right or think the way you do, you're simply rejecting what I say without any justification. What the fuck am I supposed to do about that?

I'm not the one making positive claims. You are explaining metaphysics to us, and we are providing rebuttals to points that appear to us to make no sense or have holes in their logic. It's up to you to address these, or go away. We don't have to provide evidence of anything, as we aren't making positive claims.

You are making positive claims, you are saying things like "logic can't access reality" - that's a positive claim. That's how discussions work. I make a claim and I have the burden of proof, if you reject my claim then you now have the burden of proof. It's up to you to address these problems, or go away.

I've explained this. That's the null hypothesis. It's the same principle as me not having to explain how logic can't access unicorns. You're a scientist, you know this. Stop playing silly games. YOU have said that metaphysics can tell us something about reality. It's up to you to support your statement, not us to support the opposite null position. You've only presented semantic sideshows up to this point. Again, how does reality function, how do we interact with it, etc, etc, etc.

and why you think we can know nothing about reality, or that logic can't do this. So far you've just been asserting over and over again that it can't. Show your working.

I don't have to show my working, Samsa. That's the null hypothesis. You're a scientist, you know how this works. YOU are the one claiming that we can access information about the underlying reality (i.e. potentially something distinct from what we see with our own eyes and instruments). It's up to YOU to prove something exists that we can't see with our own eyes and instruments. If you posited that unicorns where real and I said we know absolutely zero about unicorns, would it make sense for you to claim I have to show my working? Of course not. That would be idiotic. You know this. Stop playing games.

You do need to show your working as you are the one rejecting the claim and then making a positive claim of your own, if you can't defend it then you need to drop it. This is how honest and charitable discussions go - I make a claim and I back it up with a whole lot of reasoning and evidence, and then the ball is in your court. If you want to reject what I've said then that's fine but you need to give reasons for rejecting it.

Samsa, I don't need to support the null hypothesis. YOU are the one who is making a positive assertion. Answer my critique about unicorns. Would it or would it not be idiotic for you to require me to provide evidence that we know nothing about unicorns? It would be idiotic, just the same as it is idiotic of you to require me or anyone else to provide evidence that we know nothing about something we can't see/touch/hear/measure. Is there anything else that we know nothing about that you'd like me to provide evidence for not knowing anything about it? What about floating teapots in space? What about Zeus. Hell, what about the pantheon of gods? Shit, I'm going to be a busy man for next few millennia.

Otherwise what am I supposed to do? You haven't told me why you reject it, why you hold the positions you do, what flaws you think are in my arguments, etc. We'd reach a stalemate with me doing all that work and you saying, "I reject it!". It's the exact same thing in science - if I present a whole lot of evidence for the theory then my job is done. You can reject it but you need to present evidence or reasoning as to why you reject it. You can't simply say that you reject it.

You apparently don't know how science and reasoning works, Samsa. I require you right now to provide me evidence of not knowing about Zardblix on the planet Prolix. Come on, don't delay!

I did show my working and you are still ignoring it. Re-read the discussion where I introduced the thought experiment. If empiricism cannot explain or describe reality if we lived in an idealist world (or solipsist, or dualist, etc etc) and it can only describe reality if reality happened to align with an empiricist view, then it is functionally useless.

It would be a broken clock approach to understanding reality, in the sense that most of the time it's useless but if the time just happened to align with where the hands are stuck then it could give us the right time.

This is primary school logic, Samsa. None of that shows that science is a terrible method for investigating reality. Why? BECAUSE WE HAVE NO CLUE WHAT REALITY IS. Once again, you are making a positive statement about what reality is (i.e. you are positively claiming that it is not what we physically see/measure). YOU have to provide evidence to back up your claim, or be summarily dismissed. Whatever underlying reality is, we have no way at present of knowing whether science is good, bad, average, or anything. This is simple stuff. On one hand you get all riled up at people who positively claim that science is a good method for investigating reality, but on the other hand you commit the diametrically opposite failure. You positive assert that science is crap at determining reality. You simply have NO way of knowing this. But if you do, go ahead and show us how science is definitively a crap method for accessing reality. To prove that, you will have to somehow prove that underlying reality ISN'T what science is measuring how. Good luck with that.

You haven't dealt with anything I've said. Are you honestly telling me that if you had a clock which could only be right twice a day by accident, that you'd consider it a valid tool for measuring time? That's the only conclusion that can be reached based on your paragraph above.

Then you need to go back to school and take English again. I didn't address your broken clock analogy because it is speciously idiotic. We simply don't know whether science is good, bad, average, whatever at describing reality. Therefore it is idiotic to claim that it is necessarily bad. Your mistake is prefaced on an assumption for argumentative sake that we DO know how underlying reality works (the idealism etc in your example). We DON'T, therefore we can't say whether science is reflecting that or not. But you claim that it must necessarily be a bad method for studying reality. As I said, that's as stupid as claiming that it is a good method. Both are extreme naive positions. Put it this way.. I'm going to throw your own flawed logic back at you: Imagine that the underlying reality was a physicalist (or whatever the correct term is; perhaps materialist) system. Your claim that science was a terrible method at determining reality would be idiotic, because it would be the perfect system for describing underlying reality. Hence it is idiotic now, because we have no way of knowing if the underlying reality is physicalist/materialist.

If you don't agree that a method which can only give correct results through purely accidental means, and in a way where we have no actual way of knowing if its right or not, is a terrible method THEN SHOW YOUR FUCKING WORKING.

I have shown my working, time and time again. As I've just done again above. You are struggling with primary school level logic.

You have done no such thing! You've even argued just above that you specifically haven't shown working because you don't think you have to! Come on, keep the lies straight at least.

Stop being a disingenuous twat. I've just explained that I have shown my working (where it is necessary that I show it!). And I just did show my working as to why your claim that science is a terrible measure of reality is wrong. You might not agree with it (duh) but to claim that I'm not showing my working is simply dishonest.

...Are you fucking serious now? I argued that it was a terrible method to use. You disagreed. What the fuck am I supposed to conclude here?

For a start, you should dispense with the false dichotomies. The options aren't just terrible and good. Or even terrible and good and average and ok and moderately informative. There's an agnostic position that I've made clear numerous times to you. How about you start with what I have written, hey?

Nobody has said that there are only two options of terrible and good, I said terrible and valid.

Hahaha! Not only is it a false dichotomy, it's a non-sequitur dichotomy!

If something is valid then it can be good, not so good, average, moderately informative, etc. It makes no sense to hold an "agnostic" position for the reason I've described above but that's irrelevant as you said that it could be a valid approach and that's what I responded to.

I don't even know what you are going on about any more. You are supposed to conclude what I say repeatedly, that is - science is agnostic about reality. It is neither good, bad, invalid, valid, anything. It doesn't give a fuck about reality. And i know you keep saying that it is terrible concerning reality, but I've tried to show you repeatedly how your logic is flawed. You are apparently never going to get it.

Except you did say it. That's what this whole discussion is about. You argued that empiricism could be a valid way of telling us things about reality, I explained exactly how and why it wasn't. And now you're saying that you weren't saying that it could be a valid method to use? Seriously?

Come the fuck on.

This is why you get pinged with the misrepresentation thing all the time. You either are deliberately misrepresenting or you can't parse simple English. I said it COULD POTENTIALLY be valid, not THAT IT WAS. So yes, how about you come the fuck on and learn to read?

Here's what I said you dishonest cunt: " I said that empiricism has the potential to perhaps provide us with clues about the true nature of reality. Not that it must, or even does." That looks absolutely nothing like the shameful misrepresentation you've presented above. No wonder you defend Strontium Dog with his idiotic misrepresentations like this.

So let's get this straight. You said: "it COULD POTENTIALLY be valid", and I described your position as: "You argued that empiricism could be a valid way of telling us things about reality".

Where is the misrepresentation? At no point have I said that you argued "THAT IT WAS", I've made it explicitly clear that you argued that it "could" be a valid method.

So misrepresentation and dishonesty? Sure, but not from me.

I'm going to have to come back to this as I'm going to have to trawl through the quote stream. I don't even know what you are arguing about any more. I'm sure it's a fucking doozy of a point though.

They aren't assumptions, they are logical arguments/evidence. They give us information about what claims we should lend more weight to - for example, if two ideas are identical in every way except one posits an unnecessary entity, then we can argue that we should lend more weight to the one that doesn't multiply beyond necessity. This argument can be based on a whole host of factors but at the end of the day it swings us towards one over the other.

Once again, this tells us nothing about reality. Parsimony tells us absolutely nothing about anything, other than practicalities in investigating ideas. And they are assumptions the way you use them. "They give us information about what claims we should lend more weight to - for example, if two ideas are identical in every way except one posits an unnecessary entity, then we can argue that we should lend more weight to the one that doesn't multiply beyond necessity." That employs an assumption, not a statement reflecting any underlying reality.

It tells us which idea is more likely to be true, and it's not an assumption because it's a fully supported logical argument.

Bare assertion again. Why not expand on this and give the supposed fully supported logical argument. You've made a truth claim here about underlying reality. Given we know fuck all about underlying reality, that's quite a extraordinary claim. Let's see some extraordinary evidence.

But why do you think it can't tell us anything about reality? You haven't explained yourself there,

I don't need to explain myself, Samsa. I'm not the one making a positive statement. I'm employing the null hypothesis. You're a scientist, you know this stuff. I no more have to explain how we don't know about something we can't see/touch/measure, than I have to explain how we don't know about unicorns.

You are making a positive statement. You said that it can't tell us anything about reality, that's a positive statement. You can't get away with bullshit like that in science - if I say "Test X can't tell us anything about phenomenon Y" then I'm making a positive statement that needs to be supported. I'd get laughed out of a conference if someone presented evidence for the validity of a new test and I simply said: "That test can't tell us anything about Y and I don't need to support that because you're the one making the claim".

A neutral statement that doesn't require supporting is something like: "I don't know if it can tell us anything about reality" or "I'm not currently convinced that it can tell us something about reality". In those cases you don't need to support them but after I presented my reasoning and evidence you would be forced to either accept it or explain why you reject them.

I've already explained this. Until you can support the the analogous concept that I need to provide evidence of not knowing about unicorns, flying tea pots, Zeus etc etc, given these are exactly the same as underlying reality (i.e. we haven't knowingly observed them and at present we have no way of observing them), then I have nothing to explain. It's up to you to support your positive claim. You would argue that you have, but I disagree. You have only shown how logical assessments of investigations into reality tell us about investigations, not reality. I gave you an analogy about tax investigations. I'll look forward to your answer where/when ever that post was made.

especially since my examples show that it does tell us a lot of useful things.

"useful things". I specifically want you to back up your claims that metaphysics can tell us something about underlying reality. What does this underlying reality look/function like? How do we interact in our physical experience with this underlying reality? I wish you'd finally see what I am getting at. All metaphysics tells us about is the logical validity of arguments. It says absolutely nothing about underlying reality. If you think it does, then show us what it is saying about underlying reality. Start with the above questions if you like.

I gave you an example of logical impossibilities telling us what reality doesn't look like - that's hugely useful!

Well it would be, I guess, if it was correct. So far you haven't shown how it is correct. Even then, by a process of eliminating one by one the infinite possibilities of what an underlying reality could be like, we would never learn what it actually IS like.

As for what reality looks like, I don't know, I'm not particularly interested in metaphysics. The general consensus is a realist position like physicalism, so reality is essentially what we see according to various arguments (like the unreasonable effectiveness of science and the problems associated with various dualist positions).

I don't care what you know or what any one else wibbles it might be like. I want you to tell me how metaphysics tells us what it is like.

By definition it's true. If you say "logic can't tell us anything about reality" then you are, by definition, making a claim about reality (i.e. that it can't be understood/investigated through the use of logic).

Gaah, this is basic logic that you are failing at, Samsa. You aren't making a claim about reality. You are making a claim about the investigation of reality. Not reality itself. Surely you can finally see this difference??

But it's a claim about reality - saying that reality can't be understood by logic tells us something about reality, specifically that it can't be understood by logic.

Right. So saying that unicorns can't be understood by logic tells us something about unicorns. Fail.

If I discover that microbes can't be observed with the naked eye then that is a statement about microbes, specifically that they are smaller than what can be observed with the eye. With logic and reality it tells us that reality is of such a nature that logic is incapable alone of understanding or accessing it.

Well, for a start, to posit anything about microbes, you would have first had to describe them to even know if you could potentially view them. Shit analogy. Underlying reality isn't anything like this. WE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT IT. We don't even know what to look for, where, when, how. It's a nebulous concept that isn't based in empiricism like microbes are.

I quote the entirety of my post and the entirety of the relevant part of your post. You want me to post the entirety of your post preceding mine as well? What about my post before that? There has to be a limit, and I tend to quote more relevant sections than most other people - to the point where it pisses people off that I'm providing so much context.

Just do what most people do in a complex discussion, quote the maximum number of iterations that is allowable (I think it's five). There's simply no reason not to. By not doing that, you make it interminably hard to go and find exactly who said what and in what context. If I was being unkind I would say that you do this so that your repeated misrepresentations can't be so easily identified. To be honest, it seems like a fair hypothesis to me. You've got a long track record of this shit.

Jesus christ, that would make for impossibly long comments that are difficult to read and edit, and would be a complete shit show! And given your track record of fucking up when accusing me of misrepresentation, I'll take your claim of misrepresentation with a grain of salt.

And I'll treat you like a recalcitrant cunt. If you want to act like Seth, you can be treated like Seth. Stop being an annoying cunt.

With that said, everything you need context-wise is in that comment. Your reply was based directly on my comment and had nothing to do with the preceding discussion.

I'm not just talking about that comment. I'm talking about most of your comments. In a complex discussion, it's much more beneficial to see the full context and see exactly who said what when.

And no, the full context isn't there. I can't see what your original statement was, so I can't judge at this point whether your rebuttal of my accusation of circularity is correct. I have to go and find your original quote and then assess your rebuttal. Just quote the full context, ffs. It's not hard.

The full context was there. Whenever the previous comment is needed then I leave it in there. Your accusation of circularity was based entirely on that single post and it had nothing to do with the previous post.

What drugs are you on?!? How the fuck can I assess your rebuttal concerning my response to your original comment, IF I CAN'T SEE YOUR FUCKING ORIGINAL COMMENT?!? Goddamn, you'd argue that black is white if it meant not agreeing with someone. You're a fucking lost cause.

And worse case scenario, scroll back an inch or two up the page. For fuck's sake, stop being a lazy shit.

FFS, stop being a belligerent cunt. Everyone else manages to quote adequately (other than Seth, that is). Either shows some willingness to help the debate along, or get treated like Seth (i.e. summarily dismissed).

It's all quoted there. If you can't respond then just say so, don't pretend that it's anyone else's fault that you were shown up.

Lol. You fail shockingly at basic logic, Samsa. As I just explained, without your original quote, which is what we are discussing here, a proper assessment of your rebuttal can't be made. This is basic logic. It really is no wonder that you can't understand what our objections to your assertions are.

As I demonstrated, the previous post was unnecessary as it was irrelevant to the comment. You're making a positive claim here, got any evidence?!

Oh my god. Kill me. You're an idiot. You've become Seth. Well done.

There's no fucking "gotcha" moment, you are making claims and I am refuting them. That's how a discussion goes. If you're upset that I keep showing you to be wrong then explain how you're right or how I'm mistaken, don't fall back on some empty claim that it's a "gotcha" moment.

You are shocking at this logic game, man. You haven't shown how I am wrong. YOU'VE MADE A BARE ASSERTION THAT SUBSTANCE DUALISM IS ILLOGICAL. Until you show your working, that is simply a bare assertion. C'mon, you are smart enough to know this. I'm not one of the regular chumps you argue with at ratskep. You need to lift your game.

Where have I claimed that substance dualism is illogical? Ah, can't find it?

Actually I did find it and I quoted it in a recent post in one of these threads. We can deal with your undoubted forthcoming squirming as you contort yourself and the English language into pretending that you didn't actually say what you did. I can't hardly wait.

That would be because I haven't said that and the discussion of substance dualism was unrelated to the point I was making, which was why I didn't include that quoted comment.

It followed on directly from the substance dualism quote. Fuck you are a pain in the arse. I'm really dreading dealing with your contortions that are going to be there where I pointed out your own quote. Seriously, don't you get tired of constantly being the centre of these types of misunderstandings? Surely you have to realise that it's unlikely to be a case where everyone else is repeatedly wrong and you are right. You surely have to realise that sometimes you misread things and in fact actually misrepresent as a way to try and dig yourself out the holes you constantly find yourself in.

To recap: you claimed that without empirical evidence there is no way to prefer one option over another. I present two options, one is logically impossible and the other is logically possible. There is no empirical information on the two options. Your position says that you have to remain agnostic on the probability of either being true, I'm saying that this is fucking ridiculous and even you must recognise that you can prefer the logically possible one over the logically impossible one.

I can't believe I have to explain this to you. I clearly explained in my last post (and in the other thread) that you haven't shown why substance dualism is illogical. This is basic stuff. You are jumping at imaginary shadows. Lift your game.

I haven't claimed that it is illogical so why would I attempt to show that? What were you saying about those shadows?

Then why the titty christ are you saying that you "present[ed] {don't fucking quibble here, Samsa, you are recapping, remember} two options, one is logically impossible and the other is logically possible"?? When did you present this?? And why is it unreasonable for anyone other than yourself or strontium dog to correctly relate this to the TWO OPTIONS YOU PRESENTED THAT LEAD TO THIS POINT IN THE CONVERSATION? If they aren't the same, then what the fuck were the first two options about substance dualism and materialism (or whatever the other option was) doing in the discussion??

You'd need to tell me what you consider as "important". It's just an academic field trying to answer questions that they find interesting, I don't see why it needs any "importance" beyond that.

It's important in the sense that it has it's own field. As I keep jokingly saying, there's no field for logical enquiry into picnic tables. This is obviously because it isn't an important field. I want to know why I should care about what metaphysics has given us beyond an explication of the various philosophical stances in regards to science and observation etc. This extra "reality" stuff, is not impressing me. I see no evidence concerning underlying reality. All I see is logical reasoning. As I said, I don't need the field of metaphysics to pull apart shonky logic.

No, I imagine there is no field for the logical investigation of picnic tables because nobody is interested in the question. If it interested enough people then it would become a field, regardless of how important it is.

Yes yes, black is white. LOL. You could argue underwater, couldn't you?

As for your positive claims at the end there, you'll have to show your working.

You do realise that parotting accusations made at you, back in a random fashion, is idiotic, right? I have shown my working. Once again, you not agreeing with my line of reasoning is not a case of me not showing my working. This is basic logic, Samsa, and you are repeatedly showing your fail at it.

I've given you so many examples now.

No you haven't. You've given me three examples, and I've ignored the last one due to time and expediency. The first two tells us nothing whatsoever about reality. They are philosophical tools of practical value to researchers and thinkers. This has been explained to you. You haven't rebutted this point. You just keep saying the same original bare assertion over and over.

I've given a fuckload more than 3 examples. And why did you pick 3? Are you again conflating the examples of metaphysical evidence with metaphysical claims?!

Well it's a shame that you didn't quote the part of the conversation that explains what it is that you've allegedly given examples of. I'm not going to go and find it. Start quoting properly.

At this point if you don't want to understand it then there's no point me explaining it again and again. I'll try once more and that's it: if something is logically impossible then does that tell us something about reality? Of course it does. It tells us what reality can't look like.

NO IT DOESN'T! And i've rebutted this before and you haven't addressed it. You apparently don't know anything about logic. The underlying truth of a logical statement is only as good as its premises. If the premises are assumptions, then the truth of a logically coherent equation is only relevant to the condition of the assumptions. This is fucking basic stuff! You can't possibly hope to explain a subject that deals in logic if you don't understand the basics of logic itself.

Bare assertion, show your working.

You've become Seth. Well done.

If you don't know how premises affect the ultimate truth of logic, then you don't understand logic. What do you want me to do? Scan in an introductory text on logic and post it?!? Um, no. If you have a cogent question about logic, then ask it and i"ll explain it. But if you deny the basics of logic, then you're in the wrong place.

If you disagree, show your working. One line responses don't count.

And juvenile shit doesn't count as well. I've explained my workings over and over again. I haven't made any one line assertions (other than presenting the null hypothesis). If you think I have, and you want to try and back your shit up, then show them.

You haven't shown your working at all! Your entire responses to me have consisted of single line empty assertions!

The irony of you giving yet another empty assertion as a rebuttal to my charge that you need to provide evidence of your claim, is too much. You can see this, right?

[pErvinalia]

Jesus Fucking Christ, what was that post by Mr. Samsa. I knew there is a reason that I hate philosophy, I think him and Evr are trying to turn this place into ratskep but with cooler members; obviously.

Your special thread has become a nightmare of epistemological madness!

Actually, what would be cool is if a mod could merge the philosophy stuff from this thread into the other one. I've lost track of what's been said in what thread, and since Samsa has turned into the new Seth (i.e a belligerent cunt) and won't quote properly, it's getting very hard to find what was said where by whom.

[pErvinalia]

samsa, you are doing it again. Quote the full quote stream so I don't have to spend all fucking night trying to find who said what and when across two concurrent threads. Seriously, it's fucking bad form to not do this once you've been asked (multiple times).

Seriously, no. The posts are monstrously long as it is so I'm only going to include relevant posts. Don't be so damn lazy.

Don't be Seth. You'll regret it.

edit:" I'm currently in the middle of another gigantic reply and I'm flicking between threads and pages to try and find something that you were too lazy to quote. And it's worse than it sounds, as you've quoted me saying (paraphrasing) "You don't even know when you've replied to something or not". You've rebutted that by essentially saying I'm lying and to quote where you said you replied to something but you didn't. The problem is that because you haven't included the full quote stream I have no idea what the question was that you haven't responded too. So I have to interminably flick through the threads and read every fucking post and then read your replies to determine which one it was that you didn't reply to. If this was ratskep, I could just click on "wrote" and it would take me to it. But we can't do that here. So quote the full quote stream, for fucks sake.

But seriously, your comments are getting a little crazy. So what if you have to flick back an inch up the page to justify your claim that I'm lying or whatever? If it's so much hard work then maybe don't make claims you can't support.

It's not an inch! What, do you have a 48,000 pixel high screen??! I'm in the middle of the reply dialogue and I have to fucking load up the thread in another tab and then read all your bollocks till I can find what the fuck you are wibbling about.

Seriously, if your goal is to become Seth, then you should reconsider. It won't end well for you.

[pErvinalia]

samsa, you are doing it again. Quote the full quote stream so I don't have to spend all fucking night trying to find who said what and when across two concurrent threads. Seriously, it's fucking bad form to not do this once you've been asked (multiple times).

edit:" I'm currently in the middle of another gigantic reply and I'm flicking between threads and pages to try and find something that you were too lazy to quote. And it's worse than it sounds, as you've quoted me saying (paraphrasing) "You don't even know when you've replied to something or not". You've rebutted that by essentially saying I'm lying and to quote where you said you replied to something but you didn't. The problem is that because you haven't included the full quote stream I have no idea what the question was that you haven't responded too. So I have to interminably flick through the threads and read every fucking post and then read your replies to determine which one it was that you didn't reply to. If this was ratskep, I could just click on "wrote" and it would take me to it. But we can't do that here. So quote the full quote stream, for fucks sake.

Please mummy, make the bad men stop.

I won't stop. Seth and CES found this out the hard way. :evilgrin:

[DaveDodo007]

Jesus Fucking Christ, what was that post by Mr. Samsa. I knew there is a reason that I hate philosophy, I think him and Evr are trying to turn this place into ratskep but with cooler members; obviously.

Your special thread has become a nightmare of epistemological madness!

Actually, what would be cool is if a mod could merge the philosophy stuff from this thread into the other one. I've lost track of what's been said in what thread, and since Samsa has turned into the new Seth (i.e a belligerent cunt) and won't quote properly, it's getting very hard to find what was said where by whom.

Not sure that would work in this case either, this is one of the rare occasions that ratz needs a debate part of the forum. You don't have to go overboard with the rules either. Start a new thread, go back to the beginning, have one opening statement each. Then have at it.

[JimC]

Jesus Fucking Christ, what was that post by Mr. Samsa. I knew there is a reason that I hate philosophy, I think him and Evr are trying to turn this place into ratskep but with cooler members; obviously.

Your special thread has become a nightmare of epistemological madness!

Actually, what would be cool is if a mod could merge the philosophy stuff from this thread into the other one. I've lost track of what's been said in what thread, and since Samsa has turned into the new Seth (i.e a belligerent cunt) and won't quote properly, it's getting very hard to find what was said where by whom.

Not sure that would work in this case either, this is one of the rare occasions that ratz needs a debate part of the forum. You don't have to go overboard with the rules either. Start a new thread, go back to the beginning, have one opening statement each. Then have at it.