Re: Mechanical Dualism versus Naturalized Epistemology

On 14 Jan 2006 01:34:38 GMT, curt@xxxxxxxx (Curt Welch) in
comp.ai.philosophy wrote:

>lesterDELzick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Lester Zick) wrote:
>> On 13 Jan 2006 21:54:27 GMT, curt@xxxxxxxx (Curt Welch) in
>> comp.ai.philosophy wrote:
>>
>> >lesterDELzick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Lester Zick) wrote:
>> >
>> >> History is rife with assumptions to the contrary, suggesting that
>> >> there is some positive basis for science in the identification of
>> >> positive facts. However none of these positive facts can be proven
>> >> universally true and this is the reason why. All you can do is
>> >> reiterate the facts as if they were true in the absence of proof but
>> >> never understanding why or how.
>> >
>> >All your arguments are based on the belief that truth exists. It's the
>> >foundation on which you seem to build all your arguments.
>>
>> My arguments are not based on belief any belief. My belief that truth
>> exists universally originated with certain convictions but arguments
>> of mine regarding truth and falsity are only based on the mechanical
>> nature and properties of self contradiction in universal terms and the
>> tautological alternatives to self contradiction.
>>
>> In fact, Curt it's amazing to me that in all the discussions we've had
>> over the last year you haven't once made the effort to understand what
>> my arguments are based on or what they're driving at. Absolutely
>> incomprehensible. You claim to have attended G. Tech
>
>And I didn't take a single course on philosophy, and I came dman close to
>flunking out because of my lack of langauge skills.

I'm not talking philosophy, Curt. I'm talking a simple choice between
mutually exhaustive alternatives.

>> and yet you talk
>> like a complete child.
>
>Yeah, but I don't think like one.

Who cares what you think like if you can't put your thoughts into
words? Because that's the only evidence we have of what you think
like.

> And that's the problem with your
>understanding of reality. To you, langauge is the foundation of your view
>and your understanding of reality. Anyone who hasn't reached your levels
>of mastering langauage looks to you to be nothing but an idiot.

No, no, Curt. Howard Cosell used language to intimidate people. I use
language to explain what's right and wrong, true and false. And I do
it as simply as possible. My line of reasoning runs "A is true because
not A is false". Your line of reasoning runs "A is false because B is
true". It doesn't take a lot of language to understand the difference.

> Your
>langauge skills allows you to argue your points with precision and skill
>that can't be denied.

Have you ever noticed, Curt, that as my arguments are refined they get
shorter and shorter whereas your arguments get longer and longer? In
other words the more I reason, my line of reasoning and arguments get
simpler while the more you reason the more complicated they get.

I think you misunderstand why I can argue my points with precision
and skill. It's because they're correct and allow me to progressively
reduce the complexity. On the other hand wrong arguments invariably
require more and more rationalization to maintain.

> Yet, your entire belive system is based on a
>fundimental mis-understading on your part. Langauge is not the foundation
>of reality. It's only the foundation of your reality. And you belive
>otherwise, is the downfall in all your logic. It's nothing more than a
>personal belive which the data suggests is wrong.

Look, Curt, if you won't analyze my arguments how do you know what
they amount to? Right you're not even making the effort. Is "A, not A"
true? Then is "A" necessarily true if "not A" is necessarily false.And
is "not A" necessarily false if "not A" is self contradictory? That's
all you have to consider.

At the moment you're arguing that "Lester is wrong because he uses
language more adroitly than others and can fool us with smooth talk".
That argument applies equally to Glen and every other accomplished
polemicist. If that were my objective I would be running for public
office instead of doing science. I use language adroitly because the
concepts involved are correct and allow me to use words efficiently
instead of tripping over every empirical case study.

>> I understand you see yourself as some partisan
>> behaviorist spouting the revealed wisdom of materialism. However I
>> really can't conceive of why you can't see what my arguments actually
>> are, where they come from, or what they're based on. And yet you have
>> the temerity to suggest I'm wasting my time without any comprehension.
>>
>> >
> How do we know
>> >truth exists and it's not just an assumption you have made?
>>
>> We don't know that truth exists, Curt. What we know is universal self
>> contradiction exists and alternatives to universal self contradiction
>> are something we call true only because its alternatives are false.
>
>The belief on your part that the universal self contradiction exists as
>anything other than an artifact of langauge is your basis for the belief in
>truth.

No it doesn't. Self contradiction may only exist as an artifact of
language but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Here you're arguing
that language is irrelevant to science because language and language
artifacts are what, nonsense? Then why is it okay for behaviorists to
use language and language artifacts but not me? Why is it okay for
behaviorists not to explain the origin of truth and self contradiction
with language and language artifacts but when I do I'm lying through
my teeth? Because they're not smooth talkers? To me that only proves
they don't know what they're talking about quite as well as I do.

> It makes no difference if you call it a belief in the existence of
>truth or a believe in the existence of universal self contradiction, or the
>belief in universal difference. If the things that do exist in this
>universe, can be universally identified as different from other things,
>then you have universal truth. If A is universally different from B, then
>the statement "A is not B" becomes a universal truth.

So what? No one ever claimed "A is not B" is not a universal truth
if it's true. The only question is whether it's true. We already know
things are different. Right now you argue that "A is not necessarily
true because B is true". But you can't show that A and B are mutually
exhaustive. It could be that both are true. And it could be that B is
A even though A and B are not the same.

>But where in the universe hides universal difference. Where is it written,
>or even demonstarted, that for any A and B, we can always, for all time,
>tell that they are different or the same? How is A even defined or
>identified in the physical universe? How is B defined or identified? How
>can you know that they are always different?

The problem here is that you take two things, A, B, and demand to
know all kinds of things about them. All I do is take two things, "A"
and "not A" and show that if "not A" is self contradictory then A must
be true. I don't need to know where the universal truth of A and B
hides since I'm not interested in A and B but only in "A" and "not A".
You're the one interested in both A and B. I'm not because I can't
tell how they relate.

>If A and B are two events, how can you always determine which happens
>first?

If you can explain the relation between A and B I can answer your
question. If you can't explain the relation between A and B then no
one can answer your question including you.

>The answer is that we can't.

So let me see if I've got this straight. You're saying that if you
can't explain the relation between A and B no one can?

> In the universe we exist in, universal
>contradiction between alternataves doesn't exist.

Sure it does. "A or not A". It's how we get exhaustive alternatives to
begin with.

> The only place it
>exists, is in langauge. And it only exists there, because we have the
>power to describe the idea. But that's where it ends. Just like we can
>describe the idea of pink flying elepahnts. Just because our lanaguge has
>the power to describe soemthing, doesn't mean it exists in this universe.

Well this is close to being accurate except you're wrong about the
pink elephants. They don't exist precisely because we can't describe
them fully or accurately. If we could do so they would have to exist.
Universal contradiction we can describe fully and accurately because
we use it all the time in the tautological form "A or not A".

Universal contradiction certainly exists in more than language since
"not A" refers to everything except "A". What only exists in language
is self contradiction because it can't exist anywhere else. And that
provides exactly the means we need to prove contradiction true of
everything including self contradiction.

>You wrote above:
>
>> What we know is universal self contradiction exists ...
>
>How can you prove to me that what these words describe actually exists and
>is not just like a pink flying elephant which is easy to describe but which
>doesn't actually exist as anything other than a fantasy created by a
>language processing machine?

I can prove that what I describe actually exists quite easily. Whether
I can prove it to you is another question.

Prop 1: A thing is true if its alternatives are self contradictory.

Now if you can't answer this proposition with "true" then there's
nothing I can prove to you and further conversation is pointless.

~v~~

.

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