Metaphysics as an Error

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Re: Metaphysics as an Error

Post by jamest » Fri Mar 05, 2010 1:37 pm

GrahamH wrote:The problem I see there is that our knowledge is not founded on the "something", it is founded on empirical data.
Well, empirical data is a kind of knowledge, in that it's our own perceived measure of some particular value conceived by ourselves.
Anyway, there can be no [relativist] sense in saying that empirical data comes from outside ourselves, as this implies an ontology commensurate with materialism (see '1' in my argument from last night). The whole point of relativism, is to keep the totality of the empirical realm under one umbrella, so to speak - all together. A relativist cannot argue that 'knowledge' is held in a realm distinct to a realm from which empirical data comes.
I'm not sure what your philosophical position is, but you need to argue the relativist viewpoint, not the materialist one.

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Re: Metaphysics as an Error

Post by jamest » Fri Mar 05, 2010 1:39 pm

Surendra Darathy wrote:Meatfuzzies galore
jamest wrote:I understand that the post was dry and formal, but I'm hoping that you have more reason than that to overlook it.
The post was a word salad, James. Reason enough to overlook it. Get a second opinion if you don't like mine. Little Idiot's commendation should be all you need.
Since you didn't provide any reason to back your opinion, its value is there for all to see.

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Re: Metaphysics as an Error

Post by Surendra Darathy » Fri Mar 05, 2010 1:47 pm

Subject: Metaphysics as an Error
Little Idiot wrote: I think pi can be accuratly calcutated and known to a far greater (correct) accuracy than it can be measured, showing calculation generating more knowledge than measurement.
Calculation (i.e., using pen and paper, or computer program) is NOTHING if not an empirical fact. The mathematical expressions fed into computer programs to do these calculations are derived from the definitions of circles. Contending that a mathematical definition transcends the setting that led to the definition is ludicrous.

We are concerned with the deviation of measurements from the abstractions of models as a means to assess the performance of measuring devices, not as a means to detect a higher plane of "existence". Perfect geometry does not "exist". We make definitions in order to discuss the deviations from them.
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Re: Metaphysics as an Error

Post by SpeedOfSound » Fri Mar 05, 2010 1:48 pm

Surendra Darathy wrote:more and more metafuzzies
I'm loving this new MetasFuzzy tracking service. Do you have a web site?
Favorite quote:
lifegazer says "Now, the only way to proceed to claim that brains create experience, is to believe that real brains exist (we certainly cannot study them). And if a scientist does this, he transcends the barriers of both science and metaphysics."

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Re: Metaphysics as an Error

Post by Surendra Darathy » Fri Mar 05, 2010 1:52 pm

metafail
Little Idiot wrote: And who is more entitled to express opinion upon themeaning of QM than the guys who created it.
Sorry, Little Idiot. If you want to invoke QM in service of wibbling your woo, the responsibility is on you to show that you understand it. Generally, that means being able to compute with it. Do you want to discuss the possibility of metaphysics, or do you want to wibble about your subjective, intuitive "understanding" of microphysics and cosmology?

I know what I'm betting on. :nono:
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Re: Metaphysics as an Error

Post by Comte de Saint-Germain » Fri Mar 05, 2010 1:54 pm

One, I have no intention of pursuing the discussion of Hameroff and Penrose. These guys are not regarded as authoritative, and sadly, the genuine work of Penrose is overshadowed by his spouting of unadulterated bullshit. I have too much respect for science to put it to a discussion on these sorts of topics. Anyone who has studied neuroscience seriously will not arrive at Hameroff's or Penrose's conclusion. True Scotsman? Not really, I'll put money on the exception being convinced before studying neuroscience.
To a less important to science, but more important to this topic, the discussion of Penrose has muddied the topic. Metaphysics concerns itself with the 'existence' of the universe, the world, &c. If the universe turns out to be bigger, since there was a universe before ours, this is not something that metaphysics has anything to do with. It's merely an explanatory model to account for data.
A discussion of Quantum Mechanics is certainly not what I had in mind for this thread, and I greatly lament that this most rigorous of sciences has found its way into the greatest of wibblers.

Second, I am educated in mathematics. I don't have a degree in mathematics, but my study included a very big size of statistic theory. Most of mathematics is getting things done, not speculating on the metaphysical quality of mathematical constructs or axioms. The idea that a mathematician is somehow privy to metaphysical information is something I see as unfounded. These things are the domain of philosophy of logic and the philosophy of mathematics, not mathematics itself. It's true that various mathematicians have commented on it - like Goedel, but also Einstein, the latter who was closer to agreeing with me.

Third, like I said - I have been asked to tutor undergraduates in mathematics. Similarly the suggestion was that if I wanted to, I could tutor critical thinking, which includes a section on logic. Again, to undergraduates. That doesn't mean that any of this matter here would be brought up in such courses. None of what you have written here you would teach, and you would restrict yourself - at least this I hope - to physics, not metaphysics.
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Re: Metaphysics as an Error

Post by Surendra Darathy » Fri Mar 05, 2010 2:02 pm

wibbalizzics
Little Idiot wrote:Actually I cant bend a physical spoon with my mind, never said I could, only an imaginary one will give way to the force of my will. This is of course to be expected, only a solipsist thinks his own mind creates the physical world. A mentalist like myself knows my own mind only creates my own experience of the world. This model fits perfectly with the observation that I can only bend a spoon of my own making, an imaginary spoon.
What you're discovering here is the collapse of narcissism. Perhaps you've noticed that there are some aspects of your experience that seem to have nothing to do with what your "mind" creates, and this is why you think "there must be something transcendent out there". Actually, what's in there is your empirical discovery that you don't really control very much of your "experience" at all, and that this illusory sense of control you've picked up from reading too many word salads is actually something known as "denial".

What "mentalists" really need to get down to doing is to explain, even in terms of their own wibbles, what it is about the so-called "higher mind" or "Big Kahuna" that is determined on giving IM (indy minds, like indy film makers) only limited control over the script and who the actors are going to be. Lynch's film "Mulholland Drive" is a wonderful meditation on just how badly wrong you can go with mentalism or dualism. We always wake up from that bad dream, if only for a little while.
If I was doing demonstrations or experiements in material science (as we did in Sheffield Uni. as undergrads) I may be interested in the shear strength, if I was bending a physical spoon, probably more interested in the elastic limit and ultimate tensile strengh; were bending it not snapping it!
I want you to bend that fucker all out of shape. Even heat it up in the mental oven and do spoon rheology. Study it as a crystalline solid and model the migration of lattice and grain boundary defects. Do the whole shebang. Does the spoon have a fundamental spoon nature? No! How you view it empirically depends on the model you're using. You know this. Why are you wibbling about mentalism?
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Re: Metaphysics as an Error

Post by Surendra Darathy » Fri Mar 05, 2010 2:19 pm

jamest wrote:[quot
Everything I am saying here is just to facilitate the start/possibility/grounds/basis of a metaphysical argument that would eventually identify/define that 'thing' which has been proven to exist, distinct to empirical data. And that's the perfect methodology for a serious metaphysician.
No. You're assuming metaphysics to show that you can start on metaphysics. That's the old recto-cranial inversion, for ya.
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Re: Metaphysics as an Error

Post by jamest » Fri Mar 05, 2010 2:33 pm

Surendra Darathy wrote:
jamest wrote:[quot
Everything I am saying here is just to facilitate the start/possibility/grounds/basis of a metaphysical argument that would eventually identify/define that 'thing' which has been proven to exist, distinct to empirical data. And that's the perfect methodology for a serious metaphysician.
No. You're assuming metaphysics to show that you can start on metaphysics.
That's silly. I've proved that 'something' exists beyond the single umbrella of the empirical realm. And the focus of this proof was the empirical realm itself. I haven't assumed anything, least of all metaphysics. Certainly, metaphysics is the conclusion of that particular proof, as in: and, therefore, there is a grounds for metaphysics to focus upon.
That is, my proof facilitates the onset of metaphysics.

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Re: Metaphysics as an Error

Post by Surendra Darathy » Fri Mar 05, 2010 2:37 pm

Little Idiot wrote:
Surendra Darathy wrote:MNot factual. If we care to look at the facts of what I said, I said [url=http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 99#p377299]here
P1. If there is absolute truth, it must not change, or it is not absolute.
Why did I put 'if' at the start? Obviously to avoid asserting what has not been establshed.
Doesnt this just kill dead your point above?
Nope. Here's how you should do it:
Absolute truths do not change. (definition)
Time does not apply to that which does not change.
Absolute truth is timeless.
There's no need to make it hypothetical. We know you are testing a framework to see if it functions.

But all you've managed to conclude is that absolute truth is timeless. But that was not your aim. Your aim was to speculate on the possibilities of things that do not change, rather than to pin down what "changelessness" is all about.

If you want to discuss concepts not subject to change, you ought to get busy explaining what other properties than changelessness they have. Simply identifying "absolute" with "changelessness" is nothing more than your starting definition of "absolute".

Of course you will want absolute truths to be changeless. Otherwise all you have is evolution, or Heraclitean fluxes.

But what gives you to believe you can identify the "concept" of changelessness with any coherent metaphysics?

All you can do is construct tautologies around the concept of changelessness. All you have to spark your concept of changelessness is your empirical observations of change. Why would you think that because you can observe change, that you can conceive of "changelessness". All your examples are of the temporal.

This is precisely why metaphysics is crap. It involves imagining the opposite to anything you are able to observe. How is it coherent to do so?
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Re: Metaphysics as an Error

Post by Surendra Darathy » Fri Mar 05, 2010 2:44 pm

Little Idiot wrote:
Surendra Darathy wrote:
Little Idiot wrote:I have shown how Absolute truth is not part of time
Um, no, Little Idiot. You have asserted that "absolute truth" exists, and asserted that as part of your definition, "absolute truth" does not exist in time. You have not made the merest iota of a smidgen of an attempt to show how "absolute truth" or (if you prefer) "timeless truth" is possible, let alone stating any of it, notwithstanding Paul Brunton's word salads.
Not factual. If we care to look at the facts of what I said, I said here
P1. If there is absolute truth, it must not change, or it is not absolute.
Why did I put 'if' at the start? Obviously to avoid asserting what has not been establshed.
Doesnt this just kill dead your point above?
No. For fuck's sake, Little Idiot, you keep equivocating between discussing "Absolute Truth, if it exists" and saying crap like
Little Idiot wrote:I have shown how Absolute truth is not part of time
What you mean is that "if absolute truth exists, I have defined it as being not part of time". All that does is tautologically define what you mean to indicate by absolute. You mean "unchanging". You haven't shown that anything unchanging is possible; you have taken your empirical notions of change and fiddled with them in your imagination.

That is why metaphysics is crap. It's all about your imaginary sense that you have imagined the unimaginable.
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Re: Metaphysics as an Error

Post by Surendra Darathy » Fri Mar 05, 2010 2:50 pm

Little Idiot wrote: P1 says 'if' and has been defended.
P2 is an observation; what in time does not change? One single example is enough to prove me wrong. BUT YOU CANT.

And so on...
pick any one and show it to be wrong, or STFU.
Little Idiot wrote:Which C is an error? Which P is an error?
In a formal system, your axioms only show their value after you try to prove something with them. If you never get round to doing more than filling up a page with axioms, it is called "fucking around".
I am using informal logic, not a formal system, as I stated.
You're spouting nonsense again, LI. You're asking someone to refute a hypothetical. How much more absurd are you willing to get with this wibbling? Furthermore, you state above that your hypothetical "has been defended". What kind of crap is that. In a hypothetical, there's NOTHING TO DEFEND. You're defending "nothing" in P1.

No wonder you call this "informal logic". It involves asking people to refute hypotheticals. This is nothing but trolling clownage, or else your understanding of what you need to do philosophy is so rudimentary that you are unaware you are making a fool of yourself. Stick to material science, if you can do that, or teaching physics, if you can't do material science. If you can't teach physics, try teaching physics teachers. If you can't do that adequately, become a fucking school administrator or guidance counselor.
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Re: Metaphysics as an Error

Post by Surendra Darathy » Fri Mar 05, 2010 2:56 pm

jamest wrote:
GrahamH wrote:The problem I see there is that our knowledge is not founded on the "something", it is founded on empirical data.
Well, empirical data is a kind of knowledge, in that it's our own perceived measure of some particular value conceived by ourselves.
Anyway, there can be no [relativist] sense in saying that empirical data comes from outside ourselves, as this implies an ontology commensurate with materialism (see '1' in my argument from last night). The whole point of relativism, is to keep the totality of the empirical realm under one umbrella, so to speak - all together. A relativist cannot argue that 'knowledge' is held in a realm distinct to a realm from which empirical data comes.
I'm not sure what your philosophical position is, but you need to argue the relativist viewpoint, not the materialist one.
Graham, and Luis, and Jerôme and I and a few others have all noticed that you are making all this up as you go along, and have no formal experience in conducting dialogs. There is nothing to discuss with you, except your "made-up shit".

Empirical data is the knowledge worthy of the name, because it can be communicated from one person to another. In order to communicate, you don't have to grant that empirical data comes from some metaphysical realm. All you have to do is postulate that you can communicate empirical data to other people. You don't even have to establish that other people exist metaphysically. All you have to do is empirically pick up responses from those with whom you communicate. If you do not propose and test communication, we can always write you off as a solipsist, and not a very good one, at that.
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Re: Metaphysics as an Error

Post by Little Idiot » Fri Mar 05, 2010 3:02 pm

Note Quotes messed in SD's post, edit to correct them
Surendra Darathy wrote:
Surendra Darathy wrote:
Little Idiot wrote:MNot factual. If we care to look at the facts of what I said, I said [url=http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 99#p377299]here
P1. If there is absolute truth, it must not change, or it is not absolute.
Why did I put 'if' at the start? Obviously to avoid asserting what has not been establshed.
Doesnt this just kill dead your point above?
Nope. Here's how you should do it:
Absolute truths do not change. (definition)
Time does not apply to that which does not change.
Absolute truth is timeless.
There's no need to make it hypothetical. We know you are testing a framework to see if it functions.

But all you've managed to conclude is that absolute truth is timeless. But that was not your aim. Your aim was to speculate on the possibilities of things that do not change, rather than to pin down what "changelessness" is all about.

If you want to discuss concepts not subject to change, you ought to get busy explaining what other properties than changelessness they have. Simply identifying "absolute" with "changelessness" is nothing more than your starting definition of "absolute".

Of course you will want absolute truths to be changeless. Otherwise all you have is evolution, or Heraclitean fluxes.

But what gives you to believe you can identify the "concept" of changelessness with any coherent metaphysics?

All you can do is construct tautologies around the concept of changelessness. All you have to spark your concept of changelessness is your empirical observations of change. Why would you think that because you can observe change, that you can conceive of "changelessness". All your examples are of the temporal.

This is precisely why metaphysics is crap. It involves imagining the opposite to anything you are able to observe. How is it coherent to do so?
Ohh goody, an actual response to my post, rather than assertion of its bull-shittiness.
The real point of first establishing absolute truth to be timeless is that emperical method can't be used to reach it.
C1 is just setting the foundation, as I said where not to look. Its not the final point so far, in fact its the very start.

Now, on the main point of the thread, are we not here doing metaphysics? have we not discussed and agreed an essential nature of absolute truth
Isnt this
Absolute truths do not change. (definition)
Time does not apply to that which does not change.
Absolute truth is timeless.
metaphysics?
How can you do metaphysics and maintain metaphysics cant be done?

This short exercise we have been through has established something of the nature of absolute truth, and done so without emperical method.
Therefore we demonstrated metaphysics can be done.
Thereby metaphysics has been demonstrated to be able to produce knowledge, some of which is not negative or imagining the opposite to anything you are able to observe; we know absolute truth is changeless (definition), absolute truth is timeless (logic, negative of imaginable), it can not be found by emperical method (logic, negative but easily imaginable), and may be possible to find by other methods although we have not investigated what these may be yet (logic, positive, imaginable).

EDIT--> Oh, QED.
Last edited by Little Idiot on Fri Mar 05, 2010 3:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Metaphysics as an Error

Post by GrahamH » Fri Mar 05, 2010 3:09 pm

Little Idiot wrote:...

Now, on the main point of the thread, are we not here doing metaphysics? have we not discussed and agreed an essential nature of absolute truth
Isnt this
Absolute truths do not change. (definition)
Time does not apply to that which does not change.
Absolute truth is timeless.
metaphysics?
How can you do metaphysics and maintain metaphysics cant be done?

This short exercise we have been through has established something of the nature of absolute truth, and done so without emperical method.
Therefore we demonstrated metaphysics can be done.
Thereby metaphysics has been demonstrated to be able to produce knowledge; we know absolute truth is changeless (definition), absolute truth is timeless (logic), it can not be found by emperical method (logic), and may be possible to find by other methods although we have not investigated what these may be yet (logic).
No, you simply defined "Absolute Truth" to be "Timeless".

You can remove "Absolute truth" from your informal syllogism and it makes as much tautological sense. Something unchanging can be described as "timeless".

What you seem to think you have shown is that "Absolute Truth" is unchanging, but you haven't. You have said nothing meaningful about "absolute truth".

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