And those who have, the British Empire for example, have often ended up realizing they were much more ignorant than they thought,
setting aside any moral issues, which also are rather hefty.
a non-physical thing
- Thread starter swarm
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setting aside any moral issues, which also are rather hefty.
I have quite a number of interesting memories which I remember, but which I can't demonstrate to be true, so I don't represent them as true to others. Is that really so difficult?
You seem to have great difficulty distinguishing between shareing ideas with others and representing those ideas as being true when they can't be shown to be true. There is nothing wrong with sharing political ideas or any other kind with people, as long as I'm not misrepresenting them.
And if you just think you saw your neighbor in your house and then spread it all over town and then find out he wasn't even in town that night?
You shouldn't love your opinion more than the truth.
Working is a proof of functionality. If I say I know how to build a bridge and then do so, my claim is verified. But knowing how to build a bridge is related, but not the same as, knowing bridge building. For a long time people in Europe knew how to build a particular bridge, but the didn't know bridge building so any place that didn't fit the bridge they knew, they couldn't span.
This is a different meaning of the term "working." Also known as "working out" it is a measure of how it fits with their other beliefs and if it is causing them trouble. It is not proof of any particular functionality like a working bridge would be.
This is not nearly has hard as people would like it to be for most beliefs. For example only some one grossly ignorant or purposfully stupid fails to accept evolution at this time.
Another example would be the racist "tea baggers."
Can we immediatley? Sometimes.
Is it imparitive in all cases? no.
Is it possible in all cases? no.
Does that mean we shouldn't make the effect? Don't be silly. Like it or not, the truth matters and religious people have degraded the meaning of truth for far, far, far too long so that it is eroding the public understanding in ways that are becoming dangerous to society and even life in general.
And that's fine as long as they are represented as such and you seek to resolve those issue when you can.
You are saying that, but you don't live like that so I tend to not believe you. I suspect if I actually hit you, you would find that terribly relevant. I suspect if I actually took something of your's you would act like it was technically knowable.
What you really saying is that symbolic representation has no necessary link to what it is representing. Which is fine. Knowledge isn't inherently persistent. I know where my coffee cup is at the moment, but once the immediacy is lost of the direct interaction, circumstances can charge without me knowing about it, which requires finding out again...
So I currently know I have it on my desk, but later I would say "it was on my desk when I left." If I needed to know where it is currently then, I would have to go and check.
If I can actually come up with my coffee cup when I need to, then I technically do know where it is in a very demonstrable manner and if you yip when I hit you with it, I don't really care about the sophistry emanating from your lips. One of the joys of being a pragmatist.
Only within the boundaries of your context. You can think my cup is a cow til you are blue in the face and you still won't get any milk from it.
Don't be ridiculous. If you are going to posit "stuff" and you do so correctly, then you have "facts." Facts are just accurate descriptions of stuff.
I've no problems with reasonable authorities within their field. If your grand father is a physicist then using him as a source for the speed of light is fine for most discussions. But if we need some thing more exact, a reference manual would be more appropriate and then in even more detail we might reference a particular experiment and then if we really needed direct details we might run the experiment ourselves. It all depends. Are we chatting over coffee or are we trying to replicate the propagation of photons at faster than the speed of light in super dense Cesium?
You are looking for poetry, not knowledge and there is a reason why you turn to a poet about a broken heart, but a doctor for heart surgery.
And yet they knew enough that a relative handful of men took over and subjugated the entire Indian subcontinent.
What comprises sound reasoning isn't a matter of choice, mine or any one else's.
No, it isn't. If it was, then you would have to accept every other form of magic as true. But, of course, you don't.
I suppose on a bad day one could manage to go to a mall and take down 50 or more people - using a high velocity, small automatic with a suppressor. I would not confuse this with such a person being a doctor or a leader or a psychologist or that they were culturally superior to those taken down. Hell, the very skill we are talking about might be a warning sign that they are less likely to be these things.
Oh dear. I must say this is so unlikely to be honest. So when you are talking to someone who mentions a fine restaurant you also at at but 15 years ago, you refrain from mentioning this (at least until you can think of a way to prove it)? Please.
Voting, if you do it, sets ideas into action. I suppose if you do not vote and do not try to change other people's minds, but simply state political ideas in a very qualified way, you would be consistant.
Likewise.
Swarm,
I looked back through some of your posts to find examples.
Using this
as a reference for the political ones
I need to point out that for those who like the results of Bush - unlike you and me - it is impossible to prove he was bad. Given that values are human creations......
swarm said:
Join the human race, Swarm. You have beliefs that you cannot prove that you state to others as truth. I realize you can put forward arguments for some of these, but that is not proof, even if I share some of your
OPINIONS.
I could also point out that you often imply things about your discussion partners that would be impossible to prove.
I do not, for example, love my opinions more than the truth.
I do find, however, that I must, often, not only think but act on intuition. And these actions - whether speech acts or actions in the world, like voting, or hiring one person rather than another - have real consequences for people out in the world. I cannot prove all my reasoning to be true in these cases. And in some cases, it might be possible I could, but I choose not to because of time or expense issues, just like everyone else in the world.
I looked back through some of your posts to find examples.
Using this
as a reference for the political ones
I need to point out that for those who like the results of Bush - unlike you and me - it is impossible to prove he was bad. Given that values are human creations......
swarm said:
Obviously very hard to prove.
I see no qualifications here.
If you look at this one in context it is a claim to mind reading Cheskichips internal states.
Join the human race, Swarm. You have beliefs that you cannot prove that you state to others as truth. I realize you can put forward arguments for some of these, but that is not proof, even if I share some of your
OPINIONS.
I could also point out that you often imply things about your discussion partners that would be impossible to prove.
I do not, for example, love my opinions more than the truth.
I do find, however, that I must, often, not only think but act on intuition. And these actions - whether speech acts or actions in the world, like voting, or hiring one person rather than another - have real consequences for people out in the world. I cannot prove all my reasoning to be true in these cases. And in some cases, it might be possible I could, but I choose not to because of time or expense issues, just like everyone else in the world.
Is that what being part of the human race is all about?
Gee, that's useful. It obviously wouldn't dawn on those who are proponents of such ideals to rather just agree on what can be demonstrated?
So you believe only things that you can prove to others. Must I go through your posts also and find you stating things without qualification that you cannot prove?
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
lol I think you got that backwards..
The point is that you shouldn't believe any statements of mine that I cannot back up.
Nope, I got it right. I was stating what was implicit, I thought, in your comment. I was hoping when faced with it you would disagree.Enmos;2379478[QUOTE said:
That is not the subject of the discussion I was having with swarm. It is a good discussion topic, but not the one I was focused on.
Here's a belief of yours stated without qualification and one which cannot be proved....
And yet you believe it.....
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
No, you got that backwards. You should have said: "So you believe only things that others can prove (read evidence) to you."
Hm? Ok, my bad.
It is a fact. And I have backed that up plenty on this site.
Implicit in a lot of these discussions in that OTHERS should not believe things they cannot demonstrate - to use Q's wording - or prove, to use the wording of others. And they certainly should assert things that they cannot prove. And yet, I am asserting, people in general do this. If you look back through the posts I explain why I think this is unavoidable, at the very least, and even a good choice - time management, the impossibility of the task, etc. Then I notice that the people who have this stance also have beliefs that they cannot prove. I know this because they also take the step of asserting these things in a public forum without qualification.
Prove it to Q.
BAcking something up is not demonstrating its truth. In a science forum you should know the difference.
'Valuable' is a value laden-word. You cannot prove such a thing, especially when generalizing about all humans.
You can assert that they are not valuable to you. Though even here, I would guess that the way you live shows that you do in fact think humans are valuable. I would guess I could find posts where you demonstrate care and concern about what humans do to each other, for example.
No, please accept that I understand the context better than you. I've been in the dialogue longer. Q was responding to my responses to Swarm.
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
Maybe you should read the context.
And backing up means providing evidence. There is no such thing as proof in science. In a science forum you should know that..