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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Would you look in the box?
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
But evidence for a hypothetical is an entirely irrelevant and meaningless consideration.
Nope.
Question: "Assume that there is a square circle. Does it have more corners than a triangle?"
Answer: "There cannot be a square circle. Hence your assumption is nonsensical and the question has no meaning."
Thought experiments are fine, and do not have to be practical in all regards. That's after all why one employs thought experiments. However, if they are essentially at odds with reality/logic, then they are pointless exercises and it is important to say so.
By the way, I do not believe myself that our box here is a nonsensical notion. I think that's an entirely valid thought experiment. But you are simply out of line accusing people who think otherwise and say so of "intellectual wanking".
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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IntellectByProxy
Larger than you think
# 3185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
...rambling disclosure about my egotism...
In other news: bears recently discovered to shit predominantly in the woods.
(apologies for my absence; I have been in a tent up a mountain for a week, a situation not known for its excellent WiFi access, but terribly relaxing nonetheless. And, yes, I did shit in the woods)
Posts: 3482 | From: The opposite | Registered: Aug 2002
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
Yes, I would open the box. But somehow the answer, whichever way it would go, seems largely semantic. Martyrs still went to their deaths singing alleluias, monks went forth to tame the wilderness, and Bach composed a mass in B minor. Whatever caused them to do this would remain an intriguing mystery that I would want to know better.
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
But evidence for a hypothetical is an entirely irrelevant and meaningless consideration.
Nope.
Question: "Assume that there is a square circle. Does it have more corners than a triangle?"
Answer: "There cannot be a square circle. Hence your assumption is nonsensical and the question has no meaning."
Thought experiments are fine, and do not have to be practical in all regards. That's after all why one employs thought experiments. However, if they are essentially at odds with reality/logic, then they are pointless exercises and it is important to say so.
Since when is reality limited by logic?
And BTW:
Squircle--Wikipedia
You can also stretch a circular rubber band around 4 pegs (a square) on a pegboard, or around a cubical block.
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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IntellectByProxy
Larger than you think
# 3185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
It's the height of intellectual wankery to respond to a hypothetical question by saying "THAT'S not the question you should have asked, here's what I think you should have asked..."
Surely the point of a hypothetical question is to get the questionee thinking. If their thoughts lead to other hypothetical questions, isn't that, by extension, a good thing?
Where would philosophy be without such processes?
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www.zambiadiaries.blogspot.com
Posts: 3482 | From: The opposite | Registered: Aug 2002
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Foxy
Shipmate
# 2409
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Posted
Or you might just be convinced you have schizophrenia.
Posts: 499 | From: 11 blocks west | Registered: Mar 2002
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
But doesn't believing you have schizophrenia prove you don't? Psychotic people don't believe they're psychotic. They're out of touch with reality.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
But doesn't believing you have schizophrenia prove you don't? Psychotic people don't believe they're psychotic. They're out of touch with reality.
I'm pretty sure it is entirely possible for some psychotic people to know that they're psychotic. It's more problematic when they're oblivious to it, or when they don't care.
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Maybe it's the "psychotic episode" thing -- you don't realize that you're psychotic while you're in an "episode" but when you're not, you might realize it.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Alfred E. Neuman
What? Me worry?
# 6855
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Alfred E. Neuman:
Still, I would suggest any proof under your conditions would necessarily be filtered through mental/emotional biases and symbolic imagery (senses)... a hall of mirrors. ... My personal bias requires that knowledge of god be expressible physically through creative action - and it is.
So you are claiming that no knowledge of God is possible, which is not entirely conditioned on the person knowing? On what basis do you make that claim then? Clearly humans have managed to gather some knowledge that transcends their individual experience, so why is that not possible with God? In fact, is your claim not simply self-contradictory? After all, it is itself claiming to know something about God in an "objective" (valid for all) sense: namely that nothing "objective" can be known about God.
I'm poor at expressing these things but will try again. Perhaps we're talking past each other on the "proof of" and "knowledge of" aspects. Proof suggests the hard logic of mathematic formula - able to be shared using symbols understood universally. I don't think that sort of clean, objective proof is possible regarding god - there are no universally accepted symbols (that I know of).
Knowledge is much more nebulous than hard logic. It's personal understanding of a subject (to me) and subject to individual interpretation. Think of a schematic that shows a design that can be built upon - but doesn't necessarily prove a Grand Engineer. The schematic contains no scale references or materials list - and was drawn in such a way that anyone attempting to seriously study the design would discover it didn't describe a concrete object but the act of designing and creating objects. This is my personal understanding of god - as a creative principle that can be acted upon but not shared as proof objectively.
[sorry for the tangent off your 'box' analogy, IbP.]
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--Formerly: Gort--
Posts: 12954 | Registered: May 2004
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I'd be very excited and very curious. Which is why I said "only if I was drunk" - i.e. if I wasn't thinking rationally. Rationally, irrefutable proof is the negation of faith. Knowing God exists would destroy my faith, and destroy me too most likely.
In the message directly below where you wrote this, IntellectByProxy clarified:
quote:
Let's make the assumption that there is only one God, and every single human conceptualisation of God (Thor, Yahweh, Flying Spaghetti Monster) is an imperfect attempt to define the divine.
On this assumption (which I had made from the outset), it seems to me that a "No" answer would vindicate atheism, but a "Yes" answer would vindicate... what? That Christianity gives us the truest understanding of God than any other religion would still require faith.
It reminds me of the joke in which a cardinal rushes to the pope saying, "I have good news and bad news. The good news is that Jesus is returning to earth. The bad news is that you'll need to go to Salt Lake City to meet him."
As to our choices if the answer is "no", there are still various philosophies available, and the choice would likewise require a sort of faith. Epicureanism would probably suit my temperament the best.
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
But evidence for a hypothetical is an entirely irrelevant and meaningless consideration.
Nope.
Question: "Assume that there is a square circle. Does it have more corners than a triangle?"
Answer: "There cannot be a square circle. Hence your assumption is nonsensical and the question has no meaning."
Thought experiments are fine, and do not have to be practical in all regards. That's after all why one employs thought experiments. However, if they are essentially at odds with reality/logic, then they are pointless exercises and it is important to say so.
By the way, I do not believe myself that our box here is a nonsensical notion. I think that's an entirely valid thought experiment. But you are simply out of line accusing people who think otherwise and say so of "intellectual wanking".
Depends how you've defined square and circle, doesn't it?
As already demonstrated by the Squircle.
Anyway, an example where you deliberately pick two axioms that contradict each other is a straw man.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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