Typhon

Theli!

The reason why this thread has lasted, long after WJ's arguments have been torn to shreds and scattered to the four corners of the flat earth like so much chaff is... (drum roll)

Because you're all talking to the Walrus.

You should have seen it coming from the first! exclamation point, really.

Cheers,

.T.

Vorkosigan

Something is *greater* than something else in an objective sense if it exemplifies qualities which are more beautiful and manifest greater moral value.

But Kenny, beauty, moral....these are subjective terms. Which is more beautiful, the Taj Mahal? Namie Amuro? A plate of meticulously arranged sashimi in six flavors? Which is more moral, the man who stays home to help his invalid mother, or the man who goes to fight for his country when it is invaded?

Greater might be a viable objective term in reference to scalar quantities, but beauty is not a scalar quantity.

Godel defines “greater” in terms of an object exemplifying more of the positive qualities of being.

Yes, but we're still stuck in subjectivity with positive.

There is some intuitive support to this idea because we do tend to recognize things as beautiful which deepen our experience of being.

Perhaps. But Christina Aguilerra, while beautiful, does not deepen my experience of being.

The being that which no greater can be conceived, then, would be the being that manifests all the positive qualities of being to their maximum potential. This being is God.

What if I think a positive quality of being is racial purity? What if I think a positive quality of being is sex every day with a different woman? What if I feel my personal aesthetic sense is a positive quality of being? Godel's version is even more incoherent.

My point in bringing up the OA was not to defend it, but to point out that this is an argument which a theist might (legitimately, in my opinion), on intuitive grounds, justifiably believe to be sound even if it is not convincing to others,

This I can understand. However I disagree that our rejection of anon's first premise is based on some intellectual commitment to atheism. Rather, it is based on an intellectual commitment to sound logic. The answer is assumed in the premises. I have never seen an ontological argument that did not assume the answer in the premises, and this is a prime example. It is a commitment to sound logic, not atheism, that causes us to reject unsound arguments like Godel's and anon's.

Vorkosigan

Koyaanisqatsi

Making assumptions is apparently your modus operandi so why stop now?

I disagree .

Are you clinically or just congenitally deranged?

Here, let me spell it out to you in E Z 2 READ TYPE:

P1: A sound argument is one in which all premises are demonstrated to be true.
P2: You have not demonstrated P1 of your syllogsim to be true.
Therefore,
C: Your argument cannot be considered sound.

Interchange "considered sound" for "sound" at your leisure, cupcake.

The objection is to your childishness in not admitting that you know precisely why your syllogism is trivial and worthless; the formal demonstration, however, is that your syllogism cannot be considered sound.

[ May 03, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

Clutch

Koy, I can't believe this, but I'm coming to anon's defense here, in a very limited respect.

aj cites the logic textbook tradition in defining soundness solely in terms of validity and *true* premises. Nothing in there about *demonstrated*, or *warranted*, or *proved* premises (unless perhaps one is an intuitionist and views truth as a species of provability).

Once this definition is on board, then an argument's being a proof is just independent of whether someone contemplating it finds warrant for its premises. Your (1) above, Koy, rejects this definition; aj can correctly reply that you are taking a stand against the basic definition of soundness in dozens of elementary texts.

I too charged aj with failing to understand the notion of soundness; this was sloppy way of putting the matter. Better to say that aj abuses the notion. An argument can, by the textbook definition, be sound independent of evidence to that effect. But it cannot be *asserted* to be sound in the absence of such evidence.

aj is not merely entertaining an argument which, if sound, is sound irrespective of the public evidence. He moreover takes the very significant step of claiming the soundness of the argument. Is there any evidence for the truth of this claim? None. (Using the notion assertorically without evidence, hence *ab*using it in this context.) The most our state of information licenses is that if the argument is sound, then it is sound whatever is known about it. Fine; the argument is sound in the same sense that a woodchuck built Paraguay: If a woodchuck built Paraguay, then it did so independent of whether anybody knows this.

Anyhow, everyone who says that aj knows nothing about logic is pretty clearly wrong. His knowing something about the topic does not make him less of a troll, however -- quite the opposite, since the odds that this is honest but mistaken attempt at insight are quite low, and the odds that it's deliberate obfuscation quite high. Time-wasting; fortunately, we are all free to waste our time as we see fit...

anonymousj

Clutch,

Thanks for the help! I will take all I can get!

All,

What follows will, perhaps, answer a number of the objections that have been directed at my posts. It will also enable me to answer more effectively some of those objections on an individual basis.

Argument A:

1. If the name ‘anonymousj appears in bold letters off the upper left corner of this post, then there is a person who uses the user name ‘anonymousj’.
2. The name ‘anonymousj appears in bold letters of f the upper left corner of this post.
-------
3. There is a person who uses the username ‘anonymousj’.

Argument A is a sound argument. If it is allowed that a sound argument is a proof, then it is a proof that there is a person who uses the username ‘anonymousj’.

As I see things,
i) I have not proved the first premise.
ii) The first premise may be denied without contradiction. The first premise is not a necessary truth.
iii) The argument is not a question-begging argument.
iv) I violate no rule that I am aware of by asserting that the argument is sound; I am not abusing the notion of sound argument.

I pause to say, if you disagree with me on any of these points, please say where.

To continue, one can formulate arguments such as the following:

Argument B.

1. If the name ‘anonymousj’ appears in bold letters off the upper left corner of this post, then there is a person whose name is Alfred Rrug and she is making these posts..
2. The name ‘anonymousj’ appears in bold letters in the upper corner of this post.

3. There is a person whose name is Alfred Rrug and she is making these posts.

Argument B is formed by substituting a different consequent in the first premise. The fact that this can be done does not change the status of A as a sound argument, and pointing out that arguments can be formed in this way does not in any way raise any important question about the soundness of argument A.

Premise 1 is false. Argument B is not a sound argument, and, hence, not a proof. I know that premise 1 is false, though you may not. However, this doesn’t change the fact that Argument A is sound. The fact that you don’t know that argument B is unsound, does not mean that I don’t know that the argument is sound, nor does it mean that I can’t legitimately claim that it is unsound. It is true that I have given no reason to think that premise 1, in argument B, is false. Nor have I given any reason to think that premise 2 is false. As I see things, you are entitled to say that there is no reason to believe that 1 or 2 is false, if what you mean is that no reason has been given to you to believe that 1 or 2 is false, but the fact that [i] you have been given no reason to believe that premise 1 or 2 of argumentb is false does not entitle you to claim that the argument is unsound. All you can legitimately claim is that you don’t know know if it is sound or not.

If you mean by ‘there is no reason to believe that 1 or 2 is false’ that ‘No one has any reason to believe that 1 or 2 is false’, I suggest that you are not entitled to say that there is no reason to believe that 1 or 2 is false. In point of fact, if you think that no one has any reason to believe that one or two is false, you are mistaken.

I offer the above as a way of answering a number of the objections that have been directed at my posts. I will attempt to respond to those posts individually to the extent that it doing so will, as I see things, by a contribution to the discussion. Of course, if we have a disagreement over what contributes to the discussion and I do not address something that is significant, I have no doubt that someone will step forward with such disagreement.

Before I close, I would like to say that I am not trolling (I understand that to mean something like ‘bad-faith baiting’), nor am I being intentionally evasive. I am attempting to address the various objections that have been presented with only minimal attention to the order in which these objections were raised. Following a strict ‘first come, first served; second come, second served,...’ does not seem to me to be the best way of proceeding. If you disagree, sorry!, but this is one disagreement that I will ignore.

I will indicate once more that I find the abusive remarks very surprising. I was taught that there is never an excuse for bad manners. To be sure, there have been occasions on which it was hard to abide by this advice, and I haven’t always been successful. I don’t have a great deal of difficulty maintaining my manners in contexts such as this one, but perhaps this is not because of a concner for manners, but because of a fear of making a complete ass of myself by being abusive and mistaken at the same time.

It is 3 am where I am, and I am very tired. Please allow me the right to correct any mistatements that I might have made above, should I discover them later.

as always, cheers,

anonymousj

[ May 04, 2002: Message edited by: anonymousj ]</p>

curbyIII

THIS IS A DIRECT CHALLENGE TO YOU ANONYMOUSJ:

The amount of debate surrounding this topic seems to be caused by the fact that your concept of a sound argument is RADICALLY different from that of any sane person on the planet. Everybody agrees that a sound argument has to be valid. This is obvious.

The issue is to do with the truth value of the premises. You claim that an argument is sound if the premises are not proved to be false. You then disguise your arguments by having the first premise be obviously true and then pretending it was never "proved" to be true. But if everyone accepts the premise to be true then you don't need to prove it is true. You then use this to try to show that one need not prove the first premise of any argument of this form.

1. If the name ‘anonymousj appears in bold letters off the upper left corner of this post, then there is a person who uses the user name ‘anonymousj’.

2. The name ‘anonymousj appears in bold letters of f the upper left corner of this post.
-------
3. There is a person who uses the username ‘anonymousj’.

It is true that this argument is indeed sound. It has a valid form and all of its premises are true. BUT YOU HAVE NOT SHOWN THE ARGUMENT TO BE SOUND. Though the argument is in fact sound, you have not SHOWN it to be sound. We know that the premises are true so you don't need to provide any reasons as to why they are true. But if one of the premises is not obvious, then you should give reasons as to why you think it is true.
HERE IS THE REASON WHY YOUR REASONING IS FLAWED:
Using your reasoning I can prove anything I want. I will give a few arguments in your style and I challenge you to tell me why they are not sound. If an argument is sound then you are LOGICALLY FORCED to accept its conclusion.

1. If something exists, then there is no God.
2. Something exists.
---------
3. There is no God.

1. If there is intelligent life on Earth, then aliens will visit us with the intention of studying our race.
2. There is intelligent life on Earth.
---------
3. Aliens will visit us with the intention of studying our race.

1. If there is intelligent life on Earth, then aliens will visit us with the intention of enslaving our race.
2. There is intelligent life on Earth.
---------
3. Aliens will visit us with the intention of enslaving our race.

Accoring to your reasoning in order to show that the above arguments are not sound you have to PROVE that at least one of the premises is false. I challenge you to prove (beyond the shadow of a doubt) that if there is life on Earth, then aliens will not visit us with the intention of enslaving our race. If you can't prove that then you are forced to accept that aliens will visit us with the intention of enslaving our race. Better prepare for the imminent invasion.

P.S. Don't be such a baby about the "bad manners." There is always an excuse for bad manners.

Kenny

The fact that it is difficult to resolve certain moral or aesthetic questions does not negate the existence of objective moral and aesthetic facts anymore than difficulty in resolving certain historical or scientific questions negate the fact that there objective answers to such questions. In this case of beauty, I agree that beauty is to some extent subjective because we’re subjects and our recognition of beauty is often very sensitively conditioned by our own biases, but that does not mean that beauty has no objective components to it whatsoever, which is why there is a whole philosophy of aesthetics which seeks to uncover what those components are.

Beauty itself may not be a scalar quantity but that does not mean that it does not come in greater and lesser degrees. It seems pretty obvious to me that some things are more beautiful than others.

Actually, positive, in this case, has nothing to do with moral or aesthetic evaluations. “Positive properties of being” refer to those properties of an object which are associated with existence, whereas negative properties of an object are those properties of being which are associated with non-existence. As a human being, for example, there are certain characteristics of existence, certain positive qualities, which I manifest, and other characteristics of existence which I don’t manifest, The word human in front of being qualifies and limits the type of being I am. God, on the other hand, is just pure being and therefore manifests all the qualities of existence to their maximum degree.

But, again, I’ve defended the OA more than I intended to already. See the link if you’re interested in more.

Really??? She deepens mine

Well, there is a certain sense in which the conclusion to any valid deductive argument is “assumed” in the premises. If Godel’s or anon’s premises are true and their arguments valid, then they are clearly sound (because that’s the definition of “sound&#8221 . The earlier argument I provided which has “God exists or 2+2=5” as a premise is also valid and I believe (because I am a theist) sound as well, but I acknowledge that as an argument for the existence of God, it is completely worthless. This just goes to show that validity and soundness are not strong enough criteria for saying that a deductive argument demonstrates its conclusion. In other cases, (such as the OA), an argument may be legitimately convincing to some because of the intuitive value the premises hold for them, and still not be convincing to others.

God Bless,
Kenny

[ May 04, 2002: Message edited by: Kenny ]</p>

Adrian Selby

Anonymous, it seems to me that you are implying by your last post that you know premise 1 of your God argument to be true, and argument B is unsound because you know its first premise to be false. I have assumed that Argument A is a substitute for the God argument of your initial post, because to suggest otherwise is to present us with a new argument to think about and that would seem a bit silly at this stage in this thread.

I must conclude that you know premise 1 of your God argument to be true. And I do not know.
So, I can say "It is not sound" whether or not in fact it is or isn't sound. This qualification 'to you' that you mention is a crude evasion. You say that I could only legitimately claim that I don't know if premise A of the God argument is sound or not, and that you say this directly in relation to argument B. I do know the God argument is unsound because the concept of God is meaningless and I've asked you to demonstrate its veracity, which at the moment is known only to you, and from your point of view is sound, but from my point of view is unsound, and therefore not sound per se. I think also you're guilty of picking an example, with regard to 'Argument A' where we can see the username, i.e. check it for ourselves. It is hard to deny the first premise when the username is present before us. God on the other hand, is a meaningless concept, and utterly unknowable, for various reasons.

Which is the crux of the problem in relation to your proclaiming premise 1 of the God argument sound from your point of view, but is a premise that from my point of view makes no sense whatsoever. You're right in that you yourself have given me no reason to say premise 1 is true or false, however, I look at the words and do not see a statement that could contribute to a sound argument. You may therefore have to come out of your shell a bit and defend it. With regard to Argument B you say you know its first premise is false because, I assume, you know the that it isn't someone called Alfred. That's fine. But how do you know the Alfred in question is lying or not. And if (of course) it can't be Alfred because its you, then you know it because it relates to yourself and your own actions and is demonstrable. Trying to develop that over to the God argument doesn't work. You don't know God, because the belief is delusional, unlike your beliefs about yourself. We can at this point digress about how well one can know oneself, but I think that is missing the point, the thrust of which is that you can know yourself far better and more fully than you can know a concept called God.


Kenny, you say its patently obvious that some things are more beautiful than others. I'm not sure. And I'm also not sure how God is the maximised or maximum beauty or whatever in this regard, when the word is suggestive of a quantification of the concept. There are people who find Liberace wonderful and Rembrandt dull and depressing.

Adrian
Adrian

Easy Be

anonymousj,
In case your not a troll (I STRONGLY DOUBT THIS) I'll clarify to you what a troll is, and how your being depicted as one.
According to Usenet,

Vic

I AM ... That's what God the Father called himself (I AM that I AM) and Jesus got himself in hot water by saying "Before Abraham was, I AM" thus identifying himself with the Father, though it was not his father because he was conceived of the Holy Ghost. So Jesus' father was not the Father and the Holy Ghost was not the Ghost but the Father. But if the Father is not the Holy Ghost and the Holy Ghost is the Father then the Father is an Uncle. And as a father cannot be called an uncle if he fathered the child (unless the father does not know that the son is not his, which is not true in this case) he then becomes irrelevant and can be taken as non-existent. But if the son calls the Father "father" and the Father calls the Son "son" that makes the Holy Spirit irrelevant. But as the Holy Spirit, who is really the Father was sent after the Son then the son is irrelevant. But the Son came in the flesh, died and was resurrected in the flesh and ascended to Heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father, which is the Holy Spirit. So now there are 4 in Heaven: the Father, which was not the father, the Son, which now has a resurrected human brother, and the Holy Spirit, which was the father to start with. Unless the Father was the father of the Son and the Holy Spirit was the father of the human son, in which case there were 2 Fathers and 1 Son + 1 son. So we have the equation "F"/"F" = "s"/"S", which gives "Fs"/"FS". Eliminate the 2 "F" and that leave us with "s"/"S" But as "s" was a part of "S" we can divide them and we get "Q" which is &lt; than "S" but &gt; than "s". Thus "Q" exists and the rest don't. It is all rather straight forward really.