General Chat Thread

[Profesco]

A dozen of us final year uni students have started watching the very first pokemon series as a break from exam revision.

It was amusing but sweetly nostalgic for the first few episodes, until we hit episode 9. Then Brock started going on about some girl being allowed to "violate MY rights". After that we were all in hysterics and couldn't stop. Misty's reaction doesn't help.

I also never realised that there were allusions to James being gay when I was a kid...how was I naive to it?

Thumbs up from me, Pirate. You folks have a good time! (As if you weren't already)

Original series really does have the trophy for comedy. Good choice for funtimes. ^_^

[Phoopes]

Oh yes, the Original Series is quite hilarious at times. Once of my favorites ever, "Making a Mr. Mime."

[Locked In My Asylum]

http://www.wimp.com/creaturecaught/

Watch this and be amazed.

[Profesco]

What exactly is it that gives us the certainty we have that logical laws - like the law of noncontradiction - are true, universal, and inviolable? How do we "know" that about them?

[Sogeking]

Profesco are you high?

[Profesco]

No, it's just a question I've been toying with lately and desperately wish I had someone to discuss it with. =x

Edit: Because seriously, the logical argument for the necessity of the law of noncontradiction is that, were it not true, you could perform some logical calculations that ended with anything being true, including - the "clincher" - that P and ~P were both true at the same time (say that P = Profesco is not Lady Gaga and ~P = Profesco is Lady Gaga). So the logical argument proving the law of noncontradiction is circular in that it simply depends on the law of noncontradiction's truth; it can't really prove the truth of the law. In some transcendental arguments I've read, it's denied that logical laws are mere convention, which I never imagined to be a questionable denial, but taking into account the Aristotelian quote that "nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses," I'm starting to reconsider. The logical argument clearly isn't sufficient, so what else do we use to try and "know" things? Empiricism. And it seems to me that, just maybe, the law of noncontradiction is so universal only because, in the millenia humans have been around to observe things, no one has ever observed anything violating the law. So it would appear that the law is only acknowledged to be universally invariant by virtue of our experiencing it to be so thus far. And that would make a logical law sort of a human convention rather than an abstract absolute. And that opens some formerly closed doors in epistemology and ethics.

But I need someone who knows this stuff to bounce my ideas off of.

[Sogeking]

You could get high then, you would find out the answer that way.

[Profesco]

I don't trust my own intellect with total certainty when I'm operating at my best. There's no way I could trust it when I've messed it up.

Edit: Though I'm flying to Colorado in the morning. I hear they do the legal medical weed thing there.

[Phoopes]

What exactly is it that gives us the certainty we have that logical laws - like the law of noncontradiction - are true, universal, and inviolable? How do we "know" that about them?

I will not help you with your homework.

[bel9]

No, it's just a question I've been toying with lately and desperately wish I had someone to discuss it with. =x

Edit: Because seriously, the logical argument for the necessity of the law of noncontradiction is that, were it not true, you could perform some logical calculations that ended with anything being true, including - the "clincher" - that P and ~P were both true at the same time (say that P = Profesco is not Lady Gaga and ~P - Profesco is Lady Gaga). So the logical argument proving the law of noncontradiction is circular in that it simply depends on the law of noncontradiction's truth; it can't really prove the truth of the law. In some transcendental arguments I've read, it's denied that logical laws are mere convention, which I never imagined to be a questionable denial, but taking into account the Aristotelian quote that "nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses," I'm starting to reconsider. The logical argument clearly isn't sufficient, so what else do we use to try and "know" things? Empiricism. And it seems to me that, just maybe, the law of noncontradiction is so universal only because, in the millenia humans have been around to observe things, no one has ever observed anything violating the law. So it would appear that the law is only acknowledged to be universally invariant by virtue of our experiencing it to be so thus far. And that would make a logical law sort of a human convention rather than an abstract absolute. And that opens some formerly closed doors in epistemology and ethics.

Reason created a monster!

[Profesco]

Reason created a monster!

Nah, I was born this way.

[Pesky Persian]

Nah, I was born this way.

Okay, I'm confused...

Are you or are you not Mama Monster?

Or is that what we're trying to figure out?

[Profesco]

Rest assured, I'm not. What we're trying to figure out, though, is how we know for sure (and we do) that I'm not.

[intergalactic platypus]

I don't trust my own intellect with total certainty when I'm operating at my best. There's no way I could trust it when I've messed it up.

Edit: Though I'm flying to Colorado in the morning. I hear they do the legal medical weed thing there.

Oh please. Boulder is so full of hippies you could probably get a contact high just from stepping into the city limits.

[Phlogiston]

Rest assured, I'm not. What we're trying to figure out, though, is how we know for sure (and we do) that I'm not.

DNA testing?

I'll go get the machine that goes ping.

e: I just noticed that Deku_Link was demodded. Holy crap, I feel slow.

But that leaves one mod here who's not an SMod/Admin.

[Murton]

What exactly is it that gives us the certainty we have that logical laws - like the law of noncontradiction - are true, universal, and inviolable? How do we "know" that about them?

I'm not even gonna bother with the huge tl;dr text (I've tried, really, but it's saturday morning here and the only thing I can process now is the breakfast on my plate) but I think we "know" those laws are true and universal because no one has proved otherwise yet.

[Phlogiston]

I'm not even gonna bother with the huge tl;dr text (I've tried, really, but it's saturday morning here and the only thing I can process now is the breakfast on my plate) but I think we "know" those laws are true and universal because no one has proved otherwise yet.

How would you go about proving or disproving a thing like that, anyway?

Wait, it's 3:30 AM and I woke up at 9, why am I trying intelligence? (You could ask why I'm ever trying it, too, of course.)

[pirate555]

Thumbs up from me, Pirate. You folks have a good time! (As if you weren't already)

Original series really does have the trophy for comedy. Good choice for funtimes. ^_^

Haha, indeed we are! A choice selection of mathematicians, astrophysicists, medievalists and theologians all banishing their subjects for the sake of a good ol' fashioned cartoon. But did Nintendo insert all the double-entendres knowing that adults would be there to, er, 'appreciate' them?

No, it's just a question I've been toying with lately and desperately wish I had someone to discuss it with. =x

Edit: Because seriously, the logical argument for the necessity of the law of noncontradiction is that, were it not true, you could perform some logical calculations that ended with anything being true, including - the "clincher" - that P and ~P were both true at the same time (say that P = Profesco is not Lady Gaga and ~P = Profesco is Lady Gaga). So the logical argument proving the law of noncontradiction is circular in that it simply depends on the law of noncontradiction's truth; it can't really prove the truth of the law. In some transcendental arguments I've read, it's denied that logical laws are mere convention, which I never imagined to be a questionable denial, but taking into account the Aristotelian quote that "nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses," I'm starting to reconsider. The logical argument clearly isn't sufficient, so what else do we use to try and "know" things? Empiricism. And it seems to me that, just maybe, the law of noncontradiction is so universal only because, in the millenia humans have been around to observe things, no one has ever observed anything violating the law. So it would appear that the law is only acknowledged to be universally invariant by virtue of our experiencing it to be so thus far. And that would make a logical law sort of a human convention rather than an abstract absolute. And that opens some formerly closed doors in epistemology and ethics.

But I need someone who knows this stuff to bounce my ideas off of.

I'm a historian who is avoiding starting today's revision, rather than someone who knows this stuff. In fact I double-checked wikipedia to make sure I was thinking on the right lines . I'm more familiar with this concept through studying Aristotle and his context.

But it seems that while logic is the method by which human beings think criticically about everything around them and within them, that noncontradiction 'is unfalsifiable', since you are immediately relying on the laws of noncontradiction to trust to that analysis. "Today I only tell lies"
Of course I see what you mean, that proving something can never be false need not necessarily mean that it is therefore true. They depend upon the laws of logic being absolute truth, and are they human convention? But you would need a whole new logical framework in order to throw off the 'shackles' of noncontradiction. If they are shackles at all, since empirical experience has found them a useful method of navigating the physical world.

It does remind me of the postmodernism of literary deconstructionists like Derrida ("There is nothing outside the text") though, who claim that words cannot hold a fixed meaning, and then go on paradoxically to discuss their theories in books and writing. There are few vehicles capable of communicating fixed ideas as reliably as language, and the discussion of the meaningless of language - by worded discussion - becomes self-defeating.

When I next give my dad a ring, I'll ask him about it, since he'll probably have something more substantial to say than me. He's a philosopher (albeit a philosopher of consciousness, but close enough).

[Gelatino95]

I'm learning some sick yo-yo tricks

[pirate555]

I'm learning some sick yo-yo tricks

Have the got names? 'Round the world' is my favourite, I nearly knocked out someone's eye with that one once. (If I'd succeeded it may not have been my fave anymore)