Metaphysics as an Error

[Surendra Darathy]

I dont know how or even if the second can be explained by emperical method.

Argument from Incredulity? So soon? Even numbers, LI? Dividing in twain? Never seen it, before? This is only ignorance. If your bad eye offend thee, pluck it out. You'll still have one left. We can only hope.

Two paths in a wood diverged and I, I took the one less traveled by.

Because I could, LI, because I could.

Why not just 'knowledge is the result of correct reason applied in any situation'
Or 'knowledge is the result of correct reason applied to accurate data'
Or 'knowledge is the result of correct reason applied to accurate data' including data derived from a previous correct application of reason to accurate data'

Think you can just toss out the terminology "correct" without showing you are not creating a trivial tautology? Then we have "accurate", which is defined in terms of "correct", which is defined in terms of "knowledge".

The question stands: Does "correctness" entail being able to bend a spoon with it? Bend the spoon!

[Little Idiot]

I dont know how or even if the second can be explained by emperical method.

Argument from Incredulity? So soon?

Dont be silly, I dont say its not possible because I cant do it, which would be 'Argument from Incredulity'. A simple statement of humility, I dont know the answer.
I simply point out that I knew the solution to the first when I posted the question, you know, a starter for 10' so to speak. I was actually shocked it too so long to get a solution, it was just bait after all to draw response which the points clearly at the failure to solve the second one (which remember was the real question all along).

Even numbers, LI? Dividing in twain? Never seen it, before? This is only ignorance. If your bad eye offend thee, pluck it out. You'll still have one left. We can only hope.

Two paths in a wood diverged and I, I took the one less traveled by.

Because I could, LI, because I could.

Then if you can, do

Trigger Warning!!!1! :

(solve the real question)

Why not just 'knowledge is the result of correct reason applied in any situation'
Or 'knowledge is the result of correct reason applied to accurate data'
Or 'knowledge is the result of correct reason applied to accurate data' including data derived from a previous correct application of reason to accurate data'

Think you can just toss out the terminology "correct" without showing you are not creating a trivial tautology? Then we have "accurate", which is defined in terms of "correct", which is defined in terms of "knowledge".

The question stands: Does "correctness" entail being able to bend a spoon with it? Bend the spoon!

I am pointing to the error in the original definition; knowledge gained from faulty reasoning is not knowledge - is it?

[Luis Dias]

Solve the "REAL" question?

What "REAL" question?

And does it even exist?

(We all know the answer to the question though. And it ain't 41).

[Little Idiot]

My argument is the culmination of three thousand years of philosophy

I think a pole is in order; who could keep their face straight on reading that?

I am impressed.

Philistine.

big deal I spelled pole instead of poll.
Your the one who makes the claim to be at the culmination of three thousand years of philosophy
thats gotta go in my sig!

I mean

[Little Idiot]

Solve the "REAL" question?

What "REAL" question?

And does it even exist?

(We all know the answer to the question though. And it ain't 41).

Just in case your serious, I earlier asked two questions, an easy one and the unanswewred one (the real question) which is
'can you demonstrate why an odd number plus an even number always gives an odd, using only emperical method without using infinite trials?'

[Surendra Darathy]

I am pointing to the error in the original definition; knowledge gained from faulty reasoning is not knowledge - is it?

Never mind that. You still seem to be pursuing "essences". The "explanation" for lack of achievement may be "lack of ability" (i.e., stupidity) or it may be "lack of information" (i.e., ignorance). Whichever it is, the lack of achievement is empirical.

big deal I spelled pole instead of poll.

You also spell "empirical" as "emperical", although every dictionary on the planet spells it "empirical". Nonconformism is not automatically recognisable as wisdom. The consensus of dictionaries is empirical.

[Comte de Saint-Germain]

My argument is the culmination of three thousand years of philosophy

I think a pole is in order; who could keep their face straight on reading that?

I am impressed.

Philistine.

big deal I spelled pole instead of poll.
Your the one who makes the claim to be at the culmination of three thousand years of philosophy
thats gotta go in my sig!

I mean

Do you understand what 'Philistine' means? It has nothing to do with spelling - it has something to do with you being uncultured and uneducated, reflected through you finding it apparently hilarious that I accurately remark that the culmination of three thousand years of philosophy can be found in the ultimate rejection of metaphysics. This is not much different from what Nietzsche proposes - indeed, this argument is not original to me or idiosyncratic, and as such reflects little upon me.

[the PC apeman]

But I still object to you saying "knowledge is the result of reason applied to empirical data" on the grounds that you assume your conclusion (that only emperical data can produce knowledge) in your definition.

I'm not assuming my conclusion because I'm not trying to come to a conclusion. I was just giving my definition, my premise, and the consequences that trivially follow from it - namely that E is all we can know. What then followed was a defense of my definition, and by association, the consequences. You provided a counter-example of a priori knowledge. I rejected your expanded definition of knowledge as an impotent masturbatory exercise - It tells you nothing other than trivial results of arbitrary rules.

Why not just 'knowledge is the result of correct reason applied in any situation'
Or 'knowledge is the result of correct reason applied to accurate data'
Or 'knowledge is the result of correct reason applied to accurate data' including data derived from a previous correct application of reason to accurate data'

Because "correct" and "accurate" are problematic concepts at this level of epistemology.

'knowledge is the result of aquisition and accumulation of mutually coherent facts'

This one is not too bad. We might be able to work with it. By going to a coherence theory of truth, we avoid the metaphysics inherent in the more common correspondence theories of truth. But, following the JTB model of knowledge, we need more than truth. We also need justification - which is just another way of asking 'do you accept my epistemology and do you think I've applied it consistently'.

[Surendra Darathy]

Do you understand what 'Philistine' means?

It doesn't map to "non-conformist", does it?

[Comte de Saint-Germain]

Conformist or contrarian.. They're both missing the point. We walk our path, through the snow, through the ice and high mountains. No one shall steal after us.. Our very feet have effaced the path behind us, and over it stands written: Impossibility. How many little idiots does our culture have, how many Jamest's? How many more will it produce? I dare assert that they are countless! One could bridge Europe with the Americas with their cadavers.
There is but one Comte de Saint-Germain living today. His predecessors were false, his heirs are none. If I am not God, if I am not Nietzsche, it is because they were not yet ready to be me.

I am the most exemplary human being to every walk upon this Earth. None of this, none of these verbal imitations of what I feel, of what I breathe, of what it is to be me.. None of this, as arrogant or narcissist or 'ego-driven' as it sounds comes close to the claim that one has insight into the very fabric of the cosmos.. That one perceives beyond perception, that one reasons beyond reason. I make no claims to the transcendent, to the divine, to read in the Stars their ultimate making; To break the veil with the prism of my mind and gaze upon the face of God.

[jamest]

Conformist or contrarian.. They're both missing the point. We walk our path, through the snow, through the ice and high mountains. No one shall steal after us.. Our very feet have effaced the path behind us, and over it stands written: Impossibility. How many little idiots does our culture have, how many Jamest's? How many more will it produce? I dare assert that they are countless! One could bridge Europe with the Americas with their cadavers.
There is but one Comte de Saint-Germain living today. His predecessors were false, his heirs are none. If I am not God, if I am not Nietzsche, it is because they were not yet ready to be me.

I am the most exemplary human being to every walk upon this Earth. None of this, none of these verbal imitations of what I feel, of what I breathe, of what it is to be me.. None of this, as arrogant or narcissist or 'ego-driven' as it sounds comes close to the claim that one has insight into the very fabric of the cosmos.. That one perceives beyond perception, that one reasons beyond reason. I make no claims to the transcendent, to the divine, to read in the Stars their ultimate making; To break the veil with the prism of my mind and gaze upon the face of God.

It's very hard to take you seriously, oh exemplary one. For now, I'll treat it as banter.

To "reason beyond reason" - the question is, why reason is confined to the empirical alone (aka science)? I don't remember seeing you do anything other than assert this.

As I've said elsewhere, the failure in this assertion, is that it fails to define 'the empirical realm' with any precision. Rather, it assumes that the empirical realm is nought but the objects/things which constitute it, separated by space-time. But this is something which I think we need to discuss, because it goes to the heart of everything that is wrong with your scepticism.
So, please do us the honour of clarifying your thoughts.

Edit: see my next post, first.

[jamest]

What is the empirical realm? This is a significant question, because I think that the definition itself is the cause of metaphysical scepticism.

Let me provide you with an analogy, to highlight my concerns. Suppose that Wile. E Coyote (C) and Road Runner (R) declared a truce and have decided to have a philosophical chat. Of course, the topic eventually moved to that of metaphysics and we'll say that C favoured the relativist position whilst R believed that metaphysics was possible:

C: We cannot know anything beyond this cartoon realm. Everything we know and all of the concepts we have devised, relate directly to this realm. Therefore, the prospect of doing metaphysics seems impossible.

R: But what is this [cartoon] realm? You are defining it, in its totality, as those things that appear to exist, for us both.

C: And?

R: Well, firstly, you have no reason to define it thus. Implicit in your claim, is that this realm is thoroughly defined as those things that appear to exist therein.

C: But what else could it be?

R: At this juncture, that doesn't matter. What matters, is that you cannot thoroughly define a realm as 'those things that appear to interact therein' without excluding the possibility that they are reducible to something else, or that there is some integral aspect of this realm that is not observable. For example, for all you know, you and I might be reducible to a complex usage of inks and paper, by some unobservable artist. That is, in such a case, the empirical realm would have to be thoroughly defined as those things that can be observed as an effect of inks, orchestrated to yield that effect, by some unobservable artist.

C: Have you got any proof of this?

R: Perhaps, but for the time being, let's concentrate upon your debatable definition of what this realm is. I say that you have no credible reason to define this realm as you have. Indeed, in my opinion, it reeks of a hidden ontology commensurate with the philosophy of 'cartoonism' (read as: 'materialism').

C: But you cannot prove that I'm wrong. and that there is some "unobservable artist".

R: But you're missing the point. That point being, that your definition of the empirical is debatable. Therefore, when you say something like "we cannot know anything beyond this empirical realm", what you say depends EXACTLY upon what that empirical realm is.



Do you understand this analogy? Basically, I'm saying that the claim "we cannot know anything beyond the empirical realm" depends precisely upon what constitutes that realm.

[jamest]

Supplementary to the above - for anyone not "skimming over the boring bits" - it should now be obvious why metaphysics is still possible. Why? Because if we cannot know anything beyond the empirical realm - and that realm is not just defined in terms of what can be observed to exist (and there is no reason to define it thus, as previously discussed) - then we can now know more than what can be observed to exist, as long as 'that thing' is integral to whatever the empirical realm is.

The implied tool for knowing, of course, is reason, as opposed to just observation.

An approach to metaphysics is faciltated by an absolute scepticism that does not just define the empirical realm in terms of what can be observed of it. After this is understood, one should re-read my posts about 'E', from yesterday. Because, imo, those posts - read in conjunction with tonight's posts - really do resurrect metaphysics from its assumed death.


Explicit in each of my posts tonight, is the flawed and ontologically-associated claim that 'the empirical realm' is nought other than those things which appear to interact therein. This is a biased, limited and naive opinion of what that realm actually is. It's as biased, limited and naive as defining a Road Runner cartoon, as "two critters running around in a desert".

[Surendra Darathy]

Explicit in each of my posts tonight, is the flawed and ontologically-associated claim that 'the empirical realm' is nought other than those things which appear to interact therein. This is a biased, limited and naive opinion of what that realm actually is. It's as biased, limited and naive as defining a Road Runner cartoon, as "two critters running around in a desert".

Subject: The Relativity of Wrong

During discussions and debates with proponents of wacky fields such as homeopathy or chiropractic, we often hear an objection along the lines of "Yeah, but what we know now will be wrong in a hundred years!", which tends to be used as a justification to believe that invisible dragons can cure cancer by magical healing kisses, etc. However, we know intuitively that this approach is wrong but sometimes it's hard to vocalise the reason for this.

This is where Isaac Asimov helps us out with "The Relativity of Wrong":

...It seemed that in one of my innumerable essays, I had expressed a certain gladness at living in a century in which we finally got the basis of the universe straight.

I didn't go into detail in the matter, but what I meant was that we now know the basic rules governing the universe, together with the gravitational interrelationships of its gross components, as shown in the theory of relativity worked out between 1905 and 1916. We also know the basic rules governing the subatomic particles and their interrelationships, since these are very neatly described by the quantum theory worked out between 1900 and 1930. What's more, we have found that the galaxies and clusters of galaxies are the basic units of the physical universe, as discovered between 1920 and 1930.

These are all twentieth-century discoveries, you see.

The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern "knowledge" is that it is wrong. The young man then quoted with approval what Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the wisest man in Greece. "If I am the wisest man," said Socrates, "it is because I alone know that I know nothing." the implication was that I was very foolish because I was under the impression I knew a great deal.

My answer to him was, "John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."

The basic trouble, you see, is that people think that "right" and "wrong" are absolute; that everything that isn't perfectly and completely right is totally and equally wrong.

However, I don't think that's so. It seems to me that right and wrong are fuzzy concepts, and I will devote this essay to an explanation of why I think so.

...When my friend the English literature expert tells me that in every century scientists think they have worked out the universe and are always wrong, what I want to know is how wrong are they? Are they always wrong to the same degree?...

Be sure to check out the whole article, it's not that long but it's certainly an interesting read!

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong

Remember, also, the whole affair with Sokal and Bricmont that BrianMan brought up in the "Relativism is Self-refuting" debacle.

[jamest]

Explicit in each of my posts tonight, is the flawed and ontologically-associated claim that 'the empirical realm' is nought other than those things which appear to interact therein. This is a biased, limited and naive opinion of what that realm actually is. It's as biased, limited and naive as defining a Road Runner cartoon, as "two critters running around in a desert".

SD, the gist of the rest of [what you imported into] your post basically harped-on about an ever-improving science. But, in what sense do you feel that this is relevant to my posts tonight?!

The underlying significance about my posts, tonight, concerned the relativist's definition of what the empirical realm basically was. It had nothing to do with the accuracy of science!

I suggest that you re-read my posts and allow some time to digest.


Edit: I did not read what Brianman said about whatever you mentioned. Feel free to bring it up again. I'm not worried.