[quote]In Exile wrote...
A) You can't explore the consequences of it being true. It's simply impossible for you to model reality in this way, unless you're going to argue that you can simultaneously perceive all possible outcomes an (effective) infinite number of years into the future. [/quote]
I'm not claiming to know all possible outcomes. I'm claiming to follow the reasoning from some suppositions to find out where it leads. I am not claiming that this reasoning always gives me answers, or ever gives me all the answers.
[quote]Put another way, it doesn't matter what you suppose is true. What you have to do is have a viable framework to choose some outcome.[/quote]
I'm trying to describe the process that precedes that framework. I am not trying to replace that framework.
[quote]C) There's no form of reasoning available to you to do what you want to do. Logic simply cannot operate to do this - it has inherent limits that make this kind of prediction impossible.[/quote]
I'm pretty sure that the impossibility of reasoned prediction has been my position all along. I don't think there is any system of reasoning that can effectively predict how things will be in the future while at the same time ensuring accuracy in describing things as they are now.
[quote]You always have to make a choice. There's no situation where you don't have at least two possible courses of action.[/quote]
If you count inaction as action, yes. But since I insist that inaction has no moral relevance, and that uncertainty is the only rational default position, my default choice is always to do nothing.
I move from that when I have cause.
I do admit I assume that everyone starts from a position of uncertainty as their default, as that is the only default position I understand. If ever I find reasoned justiication for another default position, I'll entertain it..
[quote]And even if you're right - even if you can eliminate some (almost) infinite number of sets) that are 'nonsensical' - you still have a large number of generally 'sensical' options that you still haven't collapsed.[/quote]
But collapsing some of the nonsensical sets has value. This is my point.
[quote]Put another way, even if you can reject the absurd, you haven't eliminated all possible options but one.[/quote]
I'm not claiming I have.
[quote]No. People use the word "truth" to apprehend a different concept. Are you willing to argue that words have some Platonic ideal that they apprehend? Because otherwise it doesn't matter what the combination of sounds/set of scripts that forms "truth" apprehends, as long as we all understand it to mean the same thing.[/quote]
I don't think the word itself is relevant. I'm not discussing the word - I'm discussing the concept. I'm discussing the idea that something is either so or it is not. What words are used doesn't matter.
[quote]I suppose you'd object to words having multiple meanings, but even if that were true, then we can still reject using "truth" to describe this kind of binary condition and instead capture a more pragmatic form of knowledge, because it's a more relevant meaning.[/quote]
We need the binary condition to allow for reasoning. Any system of reasoning that tolerates contradiction allows literally everything to be true. Every conceivable conclusion follows from a contradiction.
(A and ~A) => B
[quote]You mean, the thought experiment designed to show that superimposed states are prima facie absurd and should never be given serious intellectual consideration?[/quote]
1. I never care what the author's intent was.
2. Nothing is prima facie absurd. Nothing can be. You would first need a system of reasoning to demonstrate the absurdity. I learned that from you.
[quote]Well, see - that's my point about choice. On the one hand, you refuse to even posit that reality exists in a meaningful sense. But on the other hand, you act as it if does. What reason can you offer for why you should suppose that any of your sensory inputs are worth relying on?[/quote]
I can't. There exists no such normative argument.
Is there some reason you think I can do only those things I ought do? Or that I must not do those things I needn't do?
[quote]Actually, we have millions of years of hard-wired biological programming, thousands of years of culture, and decades of socialization.[/quote]
All of which tells you about people generally, not about any specific person.
Anomalies exist. You've previously conceded this.
[quote]You assume that if you don't have information that you can syntactically manipulate you don't have information, but that's just false.[/quote]
Not quite. I don't assume that I have information unless I can syntactically manipulate it.
What you said only equates to what I said if you assume an excluded middle (something you do a lot, and I'm really curious why).
[quote]Popper is wrong. Duhem rejected his entire thesis before he even formulated it.
It's called the problem of underdetermination. I'll give you the simple case (but please challenge it rigorously - it's been years since I've really discussed it and don't have time to re-research, so my recollection might be poor; the same applies to my notation, so please ask me if anything about how I noted it in formal logic).[/quote]
I always thought Popper's argument was simplified to make it more accessible and easier to explain, not unlike the results of Gregor Mendel's famous genetic experiments with peas. I take Duhem's rejection to be the clarification Popper's theory requires to actually be applicable in real scientific investigation
[quote]Popper assumes that we have some theory T that implies some observation O. If we observe Not O, then we can reject theory T on the basis of modus ponens.
So, T => O, ~O, therefore, ~T. [/quote]
Technically that's modus tollens, but you're on the right track.
[quote]The problem is that the systme is not T => O. The actual theory T can only functionally exist in a system with some untestable assumptions (UA), and a lot of auxiliary assumptions (AA) from other theories which either share similar UAs or have their own underlying AAs. So the actual structure is more akin to:
(AA ^ AA' ^ AA'' ^ AA''' ^ AA'''' ^AA'''''' ^ AA''''''' ^ UA ^ UA' ^ UA'' ^ UA''' ^ UA"'' ^ T) => O, and if we have ~O, then we have ~ (AA ^ AA' ^ AA'' ^ AA''' ^ AA'''' ^AA'''''' ^ AA''''''' ^ UA ^ UA' ^ UA'' ^ UA''' ^ UA"'' ^ T) rather than ~T. [/quote]
Exactly. That's how falsifiability actually works.
Recall the media frenzy last year when some particle physicists at CERN thought they'd detected neutrinos travelling faster than light. Using the simplified Popper, their observation disproves the relativistic speed limit. Using enhanced Pooper, they either disproved the relativistic speed limit, or their experiment didn't work the way they thought it did. The scientific community, understanding how science actually works, waited for some evidence that the experiment did work propoerly. But it hadn't, and the relativistic speed limit remains.
[quote]
[quote]Do you think it's possible to know that something is false? [/quote]No, because it's impossible to know whether logic is actually a justified system of inference, so presuming that logical opposites actually denote true impossibility is unjustified.
If logic tells me that a particular state is logically impossible, that doesn't mean that logic is justified.
I suppose you could say that even in that case I know some element of the set is false, but if I can't know which element of the set is false, the it's meaningless.[/quote]
And that's where I'd disagree. A set is a thing. If you can know that a set is false, then you can know that something is false. That's enough.
[quote]See above. There's no reason to suppose that logic can demonstrate falsity.[/quote]
See above. Logic needs to be able to demonstrate falsehood, or no reasoning of any sort is possible.
(A and ~A) => B
[quote]Clever.[/quote]
I felt to need to reiterate my opposition to the excluded middle anywhere aside from discussions of truth.
[quote]I am still going to reiterate being sorry.[/quote]
No offense taken.
[quote]Again, you can't demonstrate that your own system of infernece isn't itself false, even if you've used it correctly.[/quote]
Not can you with yours. I fail to see how this is a relavent standard.
[quote]We can't. Because we have no reason to suppose that "necessarily false" has any value or meaning other than being a particular product of some formal system that we have no basis to believe corresponds to anything.[/quote]
If that's the case, using your own system of reasoning, describe for me the point of logic. Why does it exist? Why do computers use it?
[quote]
[quote]Games aren't reality.[/quote]Games operate by the same inferential rules.[/quote]
But they don't have to. That's my point.
Hasn't the lack of justification for any system of reasoning been the entire thrust of your argument against my approach?
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