Epistemology and the 911 Attacks

Dave Rogers said:
There's an old maxim, originated by Alexei Sayle, that anyone who employs the word "workshop" in a context other than light engineering is a twat.

I would submit that the same is true of anyone who employs the word "epistemiology" in any sincere context whatsoever.

Dave
Click to expand...

'epistemiology' isn't an actual word, so you can have that, but please don't start a nerd war by rubbishing a very important branch of philosophy (when it's spelled right and done right, of course).
 
Quiproquo said:
the mere statement of an assumption does not make it causally false

The scientific finding of a military-grade energetic material in the WTC dust and corresponding witness testimonies to secondary explosives during the collapse of the towers may provide further evidence for the alternative conspiracy narrative. Nothing wrong, illogical, or incoherent here.
Click to expand...

There has been no scientific finding of a military-grade energetic material in the WTC dust. You would have been aware of this had you employed the search function prior to posting your rant.

Your ignorance of the falsity of your assumption doesn't render it immune to criticism on those grounds.
 
Quiproquo said:
Anti-Truthers themselves seem to rely heavily on the implausibility argument when debating the 911 controversy. The alternative conspiracy narrative in regard to 911 is simply impossible, or implausible, because it does not make moral and technical (to them) sense.

A strange assumption, since to believe this they must also believe that, as stated through the mainline conspiracy narrative, we are living in a "post-911" world in which everything has changed.

In this case why base your assumptions today on assumptions you had before the 911 attacks (ie for example such a covert operation is impossible)? Hasn't "everything" changed?
Click to expand...

No, and it's important not to confuse hyperbole with fact. The statement that "in the post-9/11 world, everything has changed" is quite trivially false as an exact statement of fact, and is therefore an example of hyperbole; taking it as justification for the belief that things technically impossible before 9/11 are now technically possible, therefore, is a classic example of the fallacy of equivocation. The applicability of Newton's laws to non-relativistic events, for example, has not changed since 9/11, nor have the laws of causality, the rules of logic and the law of conservation of energy. Propositions refuted by the proper applications of those laws are therefore no less refuted because of an exaggerated, and fundamentally political, statement that "everything has changed" since 9/11.

And, in fact, none of the assumptions have changed that much either. Before 9/11, there was no presumption that the hijacking of airliners was impossible, nor that suicide attaacks could be made by crashing aircraft under control into specific targets. Both these acts were in fact well-known, the former from numerous hijackings carried out as hostage-taking operations, and the latter from Kamikaze operations in the Second World War. Nor was there any particular assumption that these could not be combined; it was simply a scenario that few people other than the planners of the attacks had seriously considered.

Dave

ETA: Nor is it incumbent on anyone to believe every aspect of a single specific narrative. You'll find many different shades of opinion on the level of negligence on the part of the Bush administration, and on the level of honesty with which they conducted themselves after the fact in planning and popularising the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Your belief that "they must also believe [...] the mainline conspiracy narrative" is nothing more than a statement of your personal prejudice.
 
Last edited:
ElMondoHummus said:
Man, half this forum is a dedicated battleground for "nerd war". You remember the Star Wars/Star Trek threads? ;):D
Click to expand...

Thankfully, no.

Anyway, philosophy vs physics would be a particularly ugly nerd war; it's best if both join forces against the woos, who as this thread demonstrates, evidently understand neither.
 
Dave Rogers said:
True, but just think of the pain it'll cause them trying to understand the argument!

Dave
Click to expand...

there's a pun in here somewhere about the difference between realist and coherence theories of Twoof, and the bold new theory of foundherentism, but I'm buggered if I can be bothered to work them out. I think I'll go back to watching Return of the Jedi instead.
 
Nick Terry said:
there's a pun in here somewhere about the difference between realist and coherence theories of Twoof, and the bold new theory of foundherentism, but I'm buggered if I can be bothered to work them out. I think I'll go back to watching Return of the Jedi instead.
Click to expand...

Which caused Star Trek II: The Revenge of Khan to be renamed to Wrath of Khan, thus earning the emnity of all dedicated Trek fans at Lucas for causing Paramount to swerve and scramble to change the title. Only to get the rug pulled out from under them when episode 6 got renamed from Revenge to Return of the Jedi.
[/gunshot in nerd war]

:boxedin:
 
ElMondoHummus said:
Which caused Star Trek II: The Revenge of Khan to be renamed to Wrath of Khan, thus earning the emnity of all dedicated Trek fans at Lucas for causing Paramount to swerve and scramble to change the title. Only to get the rug pulled out from under them when episode 6 got renamed from Revenge to Return of the Jedi.
[/gunshot in nerd war]

:boxedin:
Click to expand...

are you fighting yourself, or do you have an imaginary opponent facing off against you?

:covereyes
 
Quiproquo said:
...
I believe Man is being imposed one and only one way of perceiving knowledge around him, while there exists others. For example, we can perceive reality through a priori knowledge.

This belief in a priori knowledge does not fundamentally make Truthers paranoid, delusional, or ignorant, as Anti-Truthers contend.
Click to expand...

Anti-Liar, 911 truth are liars, not exposing truths, exposing their compete ignorance.

Go ahead present your a priori knowledge on 911. Make my day, expose your massive pile of steaming evidence.


In the 90s UBL said he would kill us, he waived killing women and children just for us. That is a priori knowledge to suspect UBL was behind 911. Truthers' a priori knowledge does make them paranoid dolts on 911.
 
Last edited:
Quiproquo said:
I apologize for the confusion:

If you read my first post in it's entirety, you will note that I contend we cannot know the truth about the 911 attacks. This is my initial proposition. I contend the conspiracy was designed this way (for example, if a secret military research device was used to bring down the towers, then we cannot by definition know about it and thus explain the events.).

I believe Man is being imposed one and only one way of perceiving knowledge around him, while there exists others. For example, we can perceive reality through a priori knowledge.

This belief in a priori knowledge does not fundamentally make Truthers paranoid, delusional, or ignorant, as Anti-Truthers contend.
Click to expand...

Stundied.

Let's see if your a priori knowledge tells you what that means, Twoofer.
 
ElMondoHummus said:
Acutally, I'm trying to just get a general nerd war started by simply putting match to tinder and firing a generic shot,
Click to expand...

Well, then what you should have done instead is do like Kirk did in the Original episode "Arena" and use bamboo, charcoa ...

Oh ... skip it.

;)
 
excaza said:
kaylee
Click to expand...

Now see, this is an interesting debate (and unlike 9/11 twoof, this actually is a debate, sorry tinfoilers but it's over... it's been over since 9/12). The way I see it, there's "cute" and there's "sexy". In Firefly, Inara (Morena Bacarin) definitely had sexy(I'll be in my bunk), but Jewel Staite had "cute" nailed down hard. But in Stargate Atlantis season 5, Jewel pushed the needle into sexy (especially in that dress she wore in ep. 5/16). Morena, on the other hand in the "V" remake, she cut her fraggin hair!

Bottom line, in Firefly, they were close, but if the contest were held today... Kaylee would edge out Inara easily.
 
All that work I did, and it's Dave Rogers who got the nerd war started?
motz_6.gif
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom