Proof of logic

What is intelligence if not the continual application of knowledge and reason?
 
Slingblade, when you fall in love with someone - I doubt that you think logicaly about it. You just fall in love, and believe the qualities that your falling in love has ascribed to him.
 
A smart person is a person that does smart things, by definition. So he can he do dumb things?
 
JetLeg said:
Slingblade, when you fall in love with someone - I doubt that you think logicaly about it. You just fall in love, and believe the qualities that your falling in love has ascribed to him.
Click to expand...

Yep, that's generally correct. I did give much more thought to the second person I married, because experience taught me caution. We lived together for five years before getting married, to "be sure this time." But there wasn't much logic to the experience of falling in love with him, no.

It was a feeling. As they teach us in nursery school these days, "feelings just are."

That's why feelings don't support logical arguments very well.
 
JetLeg said:
A smart person is a person that does smart things, by definition. So he can he do dumb things?
Click to expand...

Absolutely. Or else no one is smart at all, because no one is smart all the time.

Go to the smartest person you know, and ask her if she's ever done anything dumb in her life. Then listen for the laugh....

I actually had a conversation like that once, a few months ago. My ten-year-old niece was in a school play, and was worried about messing up on-stage. I told her, "Honey, everyone messes up on-stage. The good actors are the ones that don't do it very often and that don't let it bother them when they do." I mentioned that her father was a very good salesman, and that even he had a sales presentation tank from time to time.

Her mother -- my sister -- looked at me with this look of stunned horror in her eyes and said "My husband has NEVER had a sales meeting tank in his life."

So I asked him, later, over dinner. Now, this guy is a super salesman; he could sell brooms to desert nomads, reading glasses to the blind, and Nazi regalia at a Greenpeace rally. He should be; he's not only talented, but he's experienced; he's been doing this for something like twenty years.

So when I asked him "have you ever had a sales presentation tank?" he laughed uproariously. Of course he has. He treated us to twenty minutes of amusing war stories, all at his own expense, of just how badly he had messed up at various times.

But he's still a very good salesman.

Oh, and my niece did fantastically at her performance. As the female lead, no less....
 
Jetlag, you are terribly confused about what is factual and "everything else" (opinions, beliefs, mottoes, decisions, judgements,myths, fables, metaphors, feelings, faith, beliefs, delusions, parables, illusions, blather, dramas, examples, etc.). Facts are the things that are the same for everybody no matter what they believe. You don't have to believe facts for them to be true. The earth was spherical even when people believed it was flat.

When you speak of organized religion--certainly you realize you are really talking about a huge number of beliefs that really aren't the same religion to religion or, even, person to person. In fact, if any single religion WERE correct, that means that the vast majority of believers are WRONG. If Mohummed truly was a prophet, than Jesus is not God. If the Mormons are right, you can't go to the highest heaven. Etc.

And what is it you imagine they'd be correct about? None of them offer anything measurable or tangible-- there's nothing to distinguish one faith from another in regards to truth. And by truth I mean the one that is the same for EVERYBODY.

It's not arrogant to say that there is no measurable evidence supporting any organized religious belief, because THERE IS NO MEASURABLE EVIDENCE supporting any organized religious belief!! What do you think there is evidence for? There is no more evidence for Christianity than there is for Scientology. There is no more evidence that Mormons have the truth than that the Muslims have the truth. But members of every sect arrogantly assume they DO have the truth-- Now THAT is arrogance.

The answer to how humans got here is the same for all humans even though humans have believed many different things about the subject through the eons. The facts don't show any god-- sure, a god could be behind it all... but he would have to be cruel and wasteful and inefficient. No scriptural miracles like virgin births or talking snakes are verifiable in any way. Whether one can experience anything without a brain is a truth that is the same for everyone. Lots of people have different opinions about what happens after you die, but the facts don't care about your or what anyone wants to happen. And so far, there is no evidence to suggest that there are ANY kinds of conscious beings that don't have a brain-- not parsley, bacteria, dead people... no ghosts, souls, spirits, demons, incubi, succubi, Thetans, engrams, gods, devils, hobgoblins, sprites, or pixies. All notions involving any of these concepts are unsupported notions-- they can only be supported by faith, confirmation bias, and arrogance.

No matter how arrogant you think it is, the facts are the same-- and the facts are that there is no measurable evidence for any of the stuff organized religions proffer as higher truths. Your thinking it's arrogant, doesn't change the facts. Your opinions and assessment of the situation doesn't change the facts either. The only thing that could change the facts would be actual measurable evidence show that consciousness of some sort can exist outside of a living brain-- that's why JREF has the MDC. If anyone ever can prove something supernatural including "consciousness absent a brain", there's money available to that person... and scientists can begin honing our understanding of the topic just like we have with DNA.

Until that time, one myth is as useful as any other in regards to actual "truth". All attempts at claiming the JREF prize just highlight the fact that people are really super good at tricking themselves-- yet when tested scientifically with controls in place for the known ways humans fool themselves and/or others--they perform no better than chance.
 
drkitten said:
Yes. Argumentam ad hominem.
Click to expand...
drkitten, it seems to me that Argumentam ad hominem is "you are wrong because you are a doodyhead" whereas "you are a doodyhead" is simply name calling.

Simple name calling isn't any form of argument at all.

DR
 
Darth Rotor said:
drkitten, it seems to me that Argumentam ad hominem is "you are wrong because you are a doodyhead" whereas "you are a doodyhead" is simply name calling.

Simple name calling isn't any form of argument at all.
Click to expand...

Check the context, Darth. We're specifically discussing "this is arrogant, therefore it's wrong," which is indeed ad hominem.
 
slingblade said:
Every day.

And I don't necessarily agree yours is the definition of "smart."
Click to expand...

What is you definition of smart? I think saying that a smart person is a one that does smart things is reasonable enough.
 
Last edited:
drkitten said:
No, I disagree. It's still an ad hominem, simply an ad hominem with an implicit step. As you point out, the speaker intends for the listener to react as though the implied statement "whatever is anti-democratic is wrong" were also expressed. The implied sentence contains -- and is intended to contain -- an ad hom.
Click to expand...
(indented by me)

Where is the ad hom? The implied statement "Whatever is anti-democratic is wrong" is not a personal accusation.


With regards to statements such as "He is wrong because he is stupid" - It seems quite plausible that stupid people will be wrong, at least much more plausible than they will be wrong than smart people. So if someone is stupid, that increases the probability that he is wrong. Even if it is classified as an ad hominem, it seems a reasonable statement to me.
 
Last edited:
JetLeg said:
(indented by me)

Where is the ad hom? The implied statement "Whatever is anti-democratic is wrong" is not a personal accusation.


With regards to statements such as "He is wrong because he is stupid" - It seems quite plausible that stupid people will be wrong, at least much more plausible than they will be wrong than smart people. So if someone is stupid, that increases the probability that he is wrong. Even if it is classified as an ad hominem, it seems a reasonable statement to me.
Click to expand...

Wait, so giving someone a reason why they're wrong is arrogant, but saying that someone is wrong because they are stupid is a reasonable statement? :confused:
 
drkitten said:
You're confusing "intelligence" with "knowledge" and "reason." John Nash is arguably one of the smartest people alive today, but he knows less about the best spot for an underage person to buy beer in Ocean City, MD than half the graduating class of Ocean City High.
So he's probably going to get wrong what half the class -- and possibly the dumber half at that -- of seventeen year olds will get right. Is it arrogant for them to recognize that?

Similarly, a lot of people will believe stuff without any actual basis, simply because it's what they've been taught. Half that same clase "knows" that if you put sugar in a gas tank, the car won't work -- and that powered car windows will short out if you drive into water by accident. They're probably even taught the second in drivers' ed class. Well, the Mythbusters tested 'em both, and they're both "busted." Doesn't stop people from believing them. And if John Nash took the same drivers' ed class, he probably believes them, too. Having watched the show, I don't think it's arrogant of me to believe he's wrong if he does.

Very smart people can also simply be deluded. I picked Nash for a reason; he's certifiably schizophrenic. This means that, despite his intelligence, he provably believes things that aren't true.

Religion is like that. Lots of people -- including very smart people -- are taught to believe in God as children. But being taught something as a child doesn't make it true, although in many cases you will spend the rest of your life believing that it is. But what's the actual evidence? In terms of physical evidence, there is essentially none. In terms of logical evidence, there is also essentially none. All there is is a vague emotional "feeling" that some people have -- a feeling of no evidentiary value that we can even reproduce in the lab via brain manipulation.

So it works out to the WMD-in-Iraq issue again. There's just no credible evidence -- no objective reason to believe. And the arguments made by the believers are uniformly unconvincing.
Click to expand...

I agree that Nash can be misonformed. But if you criticize his logic, then it implies you are smarter than him, and you can't do that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom