Albert Cipriani

Damn it Daemon! (I've always wanted to say that. Can't resist the alliteration.)
This is a tough group.

The indefinite article "a" and the plural indefinite article "any" seem logically synonymous to me. If they are not, please demonstrate why they are not and I will be in your debt.

For example, A snowflake is a crystalline structure, ergo, ANY snowflake is a crystalline structure. A prime number can't be evenly divided, ergo ANY prime number can't be evenly divided.

If something is true for A part of the whole, why isn't it true for ANY part of the whole? Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

sir drinks-a-lot

Welcome back Lupo Alberto!

I was going to send an email seeing if "Sam's Song" had helped or not, but noticed you had only provided your work address. I hope all is well.

Regarding the "What's true for A thing is true for ANYthing." debate, I think it hinges on the use of the word "A". Everyone here, including me, assumed you used it to mean a particular. With this interpretation, you seem to be saying that which is true for a particular thing is true for all things in general.

But you say:

Which leaves me scratching my head and asking why you made the statement in the first place!! If they are logically synonymous, the statement is a tatuology.

Your proof seems to be heading in a similar direction as Bernard Lonergan's proof of God in Insight: A Study of Human Understanding. Yeah or Nay?

daemon

It has nothing to do with "a" and "any" in this case, it has to do with the phrasing of the statement. Now, if you had intended on saying "what's true of a thing is true of that thing," this is not what came across.

To break it out logically, it appears that your statement means "What is true of one thing (X) is true of the set of all things." This is demonstrably false, as it is quite obvious it is possible for X to be a circle, and Y to not be a circle, thus meaning that both X and Y are both circles and not circles. Ergo, self contradictory logic.

Case in point: A rock cannot float on water, therefore ANY rock cannot float on water. The first part of the sentence can be taken two ways: either some instance of what we call "rocks" cannot float, or all rocks cannot float. It makes little sense for it to be the latter--as it is taulogical--so the former explanation seems to make sense. However, if the former, it is an erroneous assumption. So we wind up with the first explanation being false, and the latter being meaningless.

What did you mean?

Albert Cipriani

Dear Daemon,
Pumas is a rock that floats. But that's neither here nor there. But depending upon where it floats to... I'm not going there!

This thread is maddening. I'll accept your charge that item #4 is a meaningless tautology. By the statement "What's true for A thing is true for ANYthing" I only meant to apply what I had said about any one thing to everything, as in "everything is information."

My crime is the equivalent of wearing a belt to make a fashion statement rather than to hold one's pants up. What I meant to say can be summed up as follows:

If the information whereby we know a thing exists is the only means whereby we know that that thing exists, then the information about the thing is synonymous with the thing. If this is true in regards to any one thing, it is also true regarding any other thing and everything, for thing type is irrelevant. Whey!


Dear Sir Drinks a Lot,
I've changed my email address to my home address on my profile here (cipriani@ivic.net) I did a search on Bernard Lonergan but couldn't find his proof of God. What I read about him seems powerful. He could be an OK guy. Could you post his proof? Cheers, Albert

Draygomb

Albert Perhaps you should restate 4 as 4) 3 applies to everything.

1) I have no problem with
2) Incorrect, we know information exists because we have that information. It may be true or false but the fact that we have it proves that it exists.
3)Information may be false but an object that exists can only be true so they are not the same.

[ February 26, 2002: Message edited by: Draygomb ]</p>

Albert Cipriani

Dear Huginn,
You ask


Ultimately, by "information" I mean "touch." That which touches something else has formed between them a relational bridge. Being in relationship is the equivalent to having information.

It's axiomatic that our five senses suck up information into the vacuum cleaner bag of our brain via chemical TOUCH (olfactory and taste senses) and mechanical TOUCH (hot/cold, tactile, and auditory senses), and photomechanical TOUCH (optical sense). As the message is the media, so too is information touch. But even supposedly self-generated abstract information, such as memory, mathematics, or imagination is touch, electrochemical TOUCH across brain synapses.

So I would bow down to the Hindu god Maya, were that god not defined as the god of ILLUSIONARY sensory input. Instead, I bow down to the Catholic incarnate God Jesus, Who is intimately associated with the sensory world He created and loved enough to meld with. Unlike Protestants and Platonists, for a Catholic to disdain the sensory world in favor of the more rarefied spiritual world is a form of blasphemy.

The old adage "the devil is in the details" is exactly the inverse of the truth. God is in the details. Every subatomic particle is in a real sense God. Of course God is not matter, but that does not exclude matter from being God. Likewise, I am not my reflection in the mirror; but that reflection in the mirror ain’t anyone else but me!

You say,


Not at all. You are being beautiful. Your question is, as all questions are, a form of prayer. Questioning is the medium of exchange for information. And information literally is the way in which God touches us and relates to us. Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

[ February 26, 2002: Message edited by: Albert Cipriani ]</p>

Albert Cipriani

Dear Draygomb,
You say:


The information that "we have," as you say, is itself a thing. Whether that information is notes on paper, pixels on a computer screen, or electrochemical changes in your cortex, that information is physically a thing.

If you are going to insist that information is not a thing nor derived from the thing we claim to have information about, pray tell, how is it that "we have that information"? How is information not a thing based upon a thing?

You say:


False on all counts. Information just is. It is not subject to being true or false. What we conclude about information is subject to being true or false, not the sensory data itself. The fact that we have information does not prove that information exists; if it can be said to prove anything, it proves that we exist.

You assert:


Once again you are engaged in synesthesia. Did you drop a lot of acid? You're mixing up state of being (object that exists) with a statement (true or false). A corollary to your statement would be: A bird that flies can only be a non-vegetable. Yeah, I suppose that's a true statement but it's fairly nonsensical. – Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Draygomb

Albert I have information that Spock comes from the planet Vulcan. Is this information based on a thing?
So if I tell you my grass is red that isn't false? It's not nonsensical it's just overly obvious to us. It could be very reasonable to say such a thing to an alien or even a small child.

Albert Cipriani

Dear Draygomb,
You ask:


Yes. Lets count the ways:
1) Photons bounced off Spock into your eye and lodged in and altered your brain.
2) Sound waves moved your eardrums in such a manner that your brain was altered.
3) Your mouth moves in ways that produce the same effect as #2 in me.
4) The Polaroids you shot on the planet Vulcan produce the same effect as #1 in me.

You ask:


Wrong question! The question itself is false. It's a Plurium Interrogationum fallacy. If I tell you I'm thinking of a number between one and ten that isn't the number you're thinking of, is that false??? How can you know? No one can answer such a question.

If you're color blind, it's true for you and false for me. If you've genetically manipulated grass to grow red, it's true for you and the world. If someone painted your grass red in the night unbeknown to you while you were asking the question of me, it's true for the painter, false to you until the sun rises and unknown to me.

To say that a bird that flies can only be a non-vegetable is nonsense because it is a non sequitur. Non-vegetable status is unrelated to a bird that flies. What do I have to do, carve a bird out of a potato and throw it across the room?

For the sake of argument, can you simply assume that things are a species of information and information is a species of thing? Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Draygomb

Albert <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

If my grass is green but I tell you it's red do you now have false information about my grass?

Spock and Vulcan are fictional any information about them is information based on nothing.
For the sake of arguement, I shall try.

[ February 28, 2002: Message edited by: Draygomb ]</p>