EdwardJCornwell

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@tschfflr I would say that 'an example is found in (3)' is qualitatively different than 'which you can find in (Chomsky, 1981)' because Chomsky is uniquely identifiable whereas 3 isn't.
My personal preference is (a), but I would read the rules for the journal.
@linguistics @minimalparts @dingemansemark

EdwardJCornwell OP , 8 months ago

@juanfal Are you just here to be annoying? Like your little mate, you're not adding anything to the conversation. Jog on. @lxvtnii @philosophy

EdwardJCornwell OP , 8 months ago

@lxvtnii Which you don't have. @philosophy

EdwardJCornwell OP , 8 months ago

@lxvtnii Do you need to look up the definition of 'pretentious'?
@SusanHR @philosophy

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@Jakra @cbontenbal @philosophy @davidesalerno68 Isn't science then a belief system since you are believing that the particular 'process of enquiry' you've chosen to use will give you 'knowledge'? Isn't it part of that belief system that you believe that repeatability has some value?

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@Jakra @cbontenbal @philosophy @davidesalerno68 That's just a word game; 'accept' in this context is synonymous with 'believe'.

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@msteenhagen @lack @cbontenbal @spencer @philosophy @Drew @philippsteinkrueger No it isn't, colour is created by our brains, ergo it is a brain state.

We have no idea whether 'colour' exists independently.

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@Jakra @cbontenbal @philosophy @davidesalerno68 but 'evidence' is simply another thing that your chosen paradigm tells you is important.

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@Jakra @cbontenbal @philosophy @davidesalerno68 You can't be sure that what you observe is also observable to others though; just because you see a Big Bang doesn't mean I'm not seeing a pink elephant - if we both call what we see a Big Bang then you have no idea that we're not observing the same thing. Just because you repeatedly observe a Big Bang and I repeatedly observe a pink elephant doesn't make the observation more correct.

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@Jakra @spencer @msteenhagen @philosophy @cbontenbal @lack @philippsteinkrueger @Drew but frequencies of light have no 'colour', they merely have a property that our brains interpret as 'colour'.

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@Jakra @cbontenbal @philosophy @davidesalerno68 so do religions, so flexibility isn't a key attribute of either.

OK, so we've moved the goal posts from 'observation' to 'measurement' (another word game but I've already made that point); how do you know that when you measure a metre I'm not measuring a yard and calling it a metre? Once you've 'measured', you then have to 'observe'.

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@msteenhagen @lack @cbontenbal @spencer @philosophy @Drew @philippsteinkrueger pigment and dye makers create substances that reflect light in given wavelengths. If you could please show me where a quanta of light keeps its colour properties I would be very grateful.

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@msteenhagen @lack @cbontenbal @spencer @philosophy @Drew @philippsteinkrueger if colours existed in the substances themselves, then we wouldn't need light to see them. Turn out the lights and discriminate between colours.

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@msteenhagen @lack @cbontenbal @spencer @philosophy @Drew @philippsteinkrueger But they're not surface qualities, because that quality disappears when our sight disappears - but the object remains, same as your feet in the dark. The only difference when the lights go out is our brain state, we're obligated to 'sense' the object another way.

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@Jakra @davidesalerno68 @cbontenbal @philosophy measurement is no more repeatable than observation.You can't know if our measurements are the same, 'units' and 'standards' mean nothing if '1 metre' is a platinum bar to you and a pink elephant to me. You will never know that I'm looking at a pink elephant and I'll never know that you're looking at a platinum bar.

'I think, therefore I am, but I have no idea if you do, or I just think you do.' and that's why 'objectivity' in science is pointless.

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@msteenhagen @lack @cbontenbal @spencer @philosophy @Drew @philippsteinkrueger They do disappear 'for you', your brain is no longer able to create the brain state that interprets photons of different wavelengths as colours. You friend can observe the colours because her brain is still capable of creating that brain state, but there's nothing you can do to create the brain state of seeing colour.

If we all went blind, then 'colours' would cease to exist.

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@Jakra @cbontenbal @philosophy @davidesalerno68 everything IS pointless, but wishing it weren't won't make other people exist.

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@msteenhagen @lack @cbontenbal @spencer @philosophy @Drew @philippsteinkrueger if you are not able to perceive colours, in what way can they be said to exist for you?

How would you test to see if they continued to exist, if you couldn't conceptualise their existence?

I didn't say they 'disappeared' from the universe, but unless another being exists to perceive 'colour' in the same way humans do, then 'colour' as we define it ceases to exist.

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@Jakra @cbontenbal @philosophy @davidesalerno68 BTW, 'assumption' as you use the term here is another synonym with 'belief'.

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@Jakra @philosophy @cbontenbal @davidesalerno68

I'll just leave this here:

'Science is totally a human invention, it is nothing more than a process of inquiry. It is not a belief system, just a structure for asking questions and attempting to answer them in a (hopefully) repeatable manner.'

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@Jakra @philosophy @cbontenbal @davidesalerno68

And this:

'I don’t BELIEVE in the Big Bang, I just accept it as the best, current model.'

Apparently, you don't believe in the big bang, but you believe in the thing it created?

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@msteenhagen @lack @cbontenbal @spencer @philosophy @Drew @philippsteinkrueger no it doesn't. Isn't the whole of this thread about atheism, which is not believing in something you can't verify? Without sight you wouldn't be able to verify the existence of colour, so to all intents and purposes it wouldn't exist. You'd have to 'believe' in its existence.

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@lack @cbontenbal @msteenhagen @spencer @philosophy @Drew @philippsteinkrueger You can't verify that colours exist, you can't verify that I exist (and I can't verify that you exist), you can't verify that the world exists, yet here you are conversing with potentially imaginary people in the belief that we do. Believe what you like is my mantra, but don't go around telling other people what to believe.

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@lack @msteenhagen @cbontenbal @philosophy @philippsteinkrueger @Drew @spencer That verification method only works if you have sight. If you don't, it's not a verification method.

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@msteenhagen @Drew @philippsteinkrueger @spencer @cbontenbal @lack @philosophy I've been saying that all along about colour.

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@Jakra @cbontenbal @philosophy @davidesalerno68 Again, your use of the term 'foundation' is synonymous with the term 'belief'.

My point is that everyone believes in something they can't prove, and it would be nice if atheists and religious people just admitted that their world view is as predicated on an unprovable 'foundation' as everyone else's. You're not in a stronger moral position because you 'believe' in science or you 'believe' in a god, it's all just the illusion that works for you.

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@msteenhagen @Drew @philippsteinkrueger @spencer @cbontenbal @lack @philosophy I'm not entirely sure what your point is here? You seem to be repeating my argument in a way that you think you're explaining something to me? I disagree that the apprehension of colour is in any way related to the apprehension of the divine, colour required at least one person in the room to be equipped with the sensory apparatus to apprehend colour, while the concept of the divine requires only the ability to reason

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@Jakra @cbontenbal @philosophy @davidesalerno68 I think I addressed that; the choice of atheism or theism is simply the illusion that works for you and allows you to make 'sense' of the world.

BTW, not believing either way is simply agnosticism, it's hardly a radically novel or 'contradictory' position.

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@lack @msteenhagen @Drew @philippsteinkrueger @spencer @cbontenbal @philosophy You've yet to demonstrate that anything exists external to ourselves, make a start on that and let me know what you come up with.

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@lack @msteenhagen @Drew @philippsteinkrueger @spencer @cbontenbal @philosophy It's nice to have hobby.

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@lack
What colour are radio waves? The only reason we are able to build detectors for other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum is that it is a spectrum. If it weren't, you wouldn't even know it was there to build a detector for.
@msteenhagen @cbontenbal @philosophy @philippsteinkrueger @Drew @spencer

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@lack
And even if you built your detector, the concept of colour still wouldn't have any meaning to you (you'd even need what would amount to extrasensory perception to verify your findings), all you'd be able to say is that there are two readings.
@msteenhagen @cbontenbal @philosophy @philippsteinkrueger @Drew @spencer

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@SusanHR You are confusing the concept of god with the concept religion. The question of the existence of a god or gods is separate to the concept of a religion, which is a social power structure.
@tetranomos @lack @msteenhagen @Drew @philippsteinkrueger @spencer @cbontenbal @philosophy

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@SusanHR Why would you accept 'I think therefore I am'? The existence of a thought doesn't prove anything either way about the existence of a thinker.

[email protected] @msteenhagen @Drew @philippsteinkrueger @spencer @cbontenbal @philosophy

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@lack assuming the existence of an external world doesn't do much to prove its existence though? Acknowledging the fact of its unprovability is a step in the right direction. @msteenhagen @Drew @philippsteinkrueger @spencer @cbontenbal @philosophy

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@SusanHR it's an easy mistake to make when someone makes a ridiculous comment about religion in the middle of a discussion on the existence of the universe.
it@[email protected] @lack @msteenhagen @Drew @philippsteinkrueger @spencer @cbontenbal @philosophy

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@PatternChaser exactly the point, that's why claims about the objective knowledge of science are a tad hollow. The sort of people who make such claims are not particularly astute thinkers, IMO.
@lack @msteenhagen @Drew @philippsteinkrueger @spencer @cbontenbal @philosophy

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@lxvtnii not sure I agree with that. What reason would I have for assuming the existence of others? I might be perfectly happy in the knowledge that I'm communicating with myself.
@philosophy

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@lack I'm not 100% certain I do exist, tbh! I do think it is perfectly valid to assume the existence of an external world for the purposes of everyday life. I guess my point is more around the atheist argument that started the thread - if disbelief in the possibility of a god is based on only accepting the material world, then there's a gaping hole in that argument that needs to be acknowledged, and very few atheists are honest enough to do so, in my experience. @cbontenbal @philosophy

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@msteenhagen what happens to your 'knowledge' if the sun goes supernova this evening? @PatternChaser @lack @Drew @philippsteinkrueger @spencer @cbontenbal @philosophy

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@msteenhagen

The 'I'm pretty confident it won't happen' type is every bookie's dream customer! 😂
@PatternChaser @lack @Drew @philippsteinkrueger @spencer @cbontenbal @philosophy

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@lxvtnii Or maybe I just don't care if you take me seriously or not? (How can it be a semi-public - or any other type of public - speech act if I'm not certain the external world exists?) @philosophy

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@msteenhagen 'I can know something without knowing that I know.' No you can't; knowing is more than just holding information, otherwise every data warehouse in the world is smarter than the entire human race. 'Knowing' is contextualising and assessing (which are 100% conscious processes). @PatternChaser @lack @Drew @philippsteinkrueger @spencer @cbontenbal @philosophy

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@lxvtnii I didn't realise you were the philosophy police, do you have a badge? @philosophy

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@SusanHR No, Freud did a lot of work on the unconscious and preconscious mind. Just because you don't know something doesn't mean it doesn't exist in your mind. @PatternChaser @lack @msteenhagen @Drew @philippsteinkrueger @spencer @cbontenbal @philosophy

EdwardJCornwell , 8 months ago

@lack Being outside of your conscious control doesn't mean it exists outside your mind. @SusanHR @PatternChaser @msteenhagen @Drew @philippsteinkrueger @spencer @cbontenbal @philosophy