Skepticism and The Normal

[zooterkin]

did'nt say it was a synonym. rythym is the essence of syncopation, and once one single note is struck by any musician on any instrument, and entire universe of possible syncopation emerges by default.

You used it as a synonym. You can have rhythm without syncopation. You cannot have syncopation without rhythm. Syncopation is not essential for music. You were quite simply wrong when you made the statement that music consists minimally (if not entirely) of syncopation and harmony.

It depends. If you dont think Angelina Jolie is beautiful because you are not attracted to her, yes, you would be wrong, as in incorrect.

And if I don't find her beautiful and yet am still attracted to her? That's just a complete non sequitur, anyway. Beauty is subjective, there is no objective measure of beauty. If there was, we wouldn't be arguing about it. So far the only argument you have advanced for beauty being objective is some hand-waving about symmetry.

who decides that 2 + 2 = 4?

What, apart from thousands of years of experience, assuming you mean putting two groups of two things together and finding you have four objects, rather than a discussion of what symbols are being used to represent it? That is something which can be observed objectively.

beauty transcends a concept about it, so the use of the concept of beauty is relative.

In English, please.

That part may be subjective, as in the arrangment. For example, Miles Davis and Gil Evans arrangment of 'Summertime' i find more beautiful than the 'Turtles' arrangment of 'Summertime'. But that's my *prefrence* for beauty.

So, you are at least admitting degrees of beauty, and a personal preference. Do you think everyone will agree with your ordering of the relative beauty of different pieces of music, or of different arrangements of the same piece?

I dont know how you understand symmetry yet, so I dont know if we are refferring to the same thing, but if you mean symmetry the way an artist or designer means symmetry, I doubt it.

Perhaps you could give the definition you are using, as long is it's not a circular one.

sure, assymmetry is part of a higher symmetry.

Black is a part of a higher white.

You cant have a note sounding the way it does with a harmony to that note by default.

Could you restate that in English, please?

harmony and syncopation is how music is expressed.

To use your phrase, 'magickal thinking'. As previously explained, both harmony and syncopation may occur in music, but neither is essential for music to be expressed.

The element of musics are tones and notes.

How would you define the difference between a tone and a note?

music is expressed via subjective arrangement of tones and notes, and it's subjective appreciation is relative to it's arrangments.

Um, the arrangement is not subjective, it's objectively observable. The appreciation is subjective, yes. That's the point at which you decide whether it is beautiful or not.

I think you're getting a bit hung up on different arrangements. I may find a particular performance of one arrangement beautiful, and another not. I may also dislike a particular arrangement so much that I find no performance of it beautiful. It's all subjective.

Tones are beautiful.

Tones can be beautiful. One continuous tone in isolation is not necessarily beautiful

Notes are expressions of tones in rythym. One single note is both tone and rythym at once, as is naturally beautiful to the ear amongst all other events in the aural environment.

Your meaning is not at all clear. Please restate this in English.

Your spelling task for this week:

Rhythm (1 'Y', 2 'H')
Arrangement (2 'E')

 

[WWHP]

Wrong.

Syncopation (look up the definition) can only exist with reference to an established rhythmic pattern. A rhythmic pattern cannot be established by a single note.

Okay, back to this again.

0=meaning of text
1=text
2= your interpretation of text.


I dont need a few stiffs lecturing me on music, or what i mean about music.

 

[WWHP]

I'm pretty certain it was a sine wave, which is about as pure a tone as you can get. The tones produced by bells are typically not pure, as they include a lot of higher harmonics. I very much doubt that that is a single musical tone.

0=meaning of text
1=text
2=interpretation of text

For something to be both objective and subjective, it must be the same from all viewpoints (objective) and not the same from all viewpoints (subjective).

or, it could have components that are the same for all viewpoints, and components which are relative to all viewpoints

Have you figured out the problem with your claim that something can be "both objective and subjective" yet?

I figured out YOUR problem with it months back. Your stuck in dualism and bivalency, have no clear understanding regarding the dynamic distinctions between objective reality and subjective reality, and thus cannot conceptualize that which is both objective and subjective

 

[Mojo]

Okay, back to this again.

0=meaning of text
1=text
2= your interpretation of text.

OK, could you state what you meant when you posted: "rythym is the essence of syncopation, and once one single note is struck by any musician on any instrument, and entire universe of possible syncopation emerges by default."

And while you're at it, could you also provide a definition for the word "rythym".

I dont need a few stiffs lecturing me on music, or what i mean about music.

A typical Bubblefish reaction: you're wrong and you don't like having it pointed out.

 

[WWHP]

Remember that his "meaning" and "ideas about reality" only exist inside his head.

They exist in his head, yes, but they are also communicated either consciously or unconsciously

His ideas about reality can only be used to manipulate the discussion if you allow them to.

And cleary I didnt, and clearly you are allowing them to

If you stick to the arguments posted, "ideas about reality" only come into play if they have been included in the argument you are addressing.

makey no sense here

All you're doing here is trying to make excuses for your ad hom attacks.

an ad hom attack is PURELY based on the person, not the argument. For me to have ad hom him, I would have had to IGNORE his arguments and only made statements about him to refute his ideas.

I'm not clarifying that again with you. Look up ad hom

 

[zooterkin]

Okay, back to this again.

0=meaning of text
1=text
2= your interpretation of text.

What does this have to do with you using the wrong word?

I dont need a few stiffs lecturing me on music, or what i mean about music.

You claim knowledge of music, yet display a misunderstanding of some of the basic terms. If we can't believe you on this, is it any surprise people disbelieve your other statements? Perhaps you should admit that there are some things which are a mystery to you. On the evidence of this and other threads, quite a few things.

 

[Mojo]

or, it could have components that are the same for all viewpoints, and components which are relative to all viewpoints

In which case it is subjective, as it has components that are not the same from all viewpoints.

 

[Mojo]

an ad hom attack is PURELY based on the person, not the argument. For me to have ad hom him, I would have had to IGNORE his arguments and only made statements about him to refute his ideas.

It is quite possible for an argument to have components that are ad hom and other components that are not ad hom.

 

[Mojo]

Perhaps you should admit that there are some things which are a mystery to you.

What, Bubblefish admit that the concept of "mystery" exists?

 

[WWHP]

You used it as a synonym. You can have rhythm without syncopation. You cannot have syncopation without rhythm. Syncopation is not essential for music. You were quite simply wrong when you made the statement that music consists minimally (if not entirely) of syncopation and harmony.

I never said music consists minimally of syncopation and harmony, rather, syncopation and harmony are co-existant in music by default, they are neccesary truths of music.

I am not going to get hung up on semantics or philosophy of music, that is not what this discusion is about.

And if I don't find her beautiful and yet am still attracted to her?

Work that one out with your therapist

That's just a complete non sequitur, anyway.

Yes, your comment most certainly was

Beauty is subjective, there is no objective measure of beauty.

You have quite a few number of mathematicians, AI specialists, artists, and philosophers who disagree with you.

If there was, we wouldn't be arguing about it.

hah! That's a laugh. People have been arguing about this for thousands of years

So far the only argument you have advanced for beauty being objective is some hand-waving about symmetry.

the idea that symmetry is identifiable as beauty is hardly handwaving, and not even original.

http://www.jyi.org/volumes/volume6/issue6/features/feng.html

Today, this symmetry has been scientifically proven to be inherently attractive to the human eye. It has been defined not with proportions, but rather with similarity between the left and right sides of the face Thus, the Greeks were only partially correct.

What, apart from thousands of years of experience, assuming you mean putting two groups of two things together and finding you have four objects, rather than a discussion of what symbols are being used to represent it? That is something which can be observed objectively.

Beauty can also be observed objectively

In English, please.

beauty transcends the concept about it, so the use of the concept, or the individual understanding of beauty is relative.

So, you are at least admitting degrees of beauty, and a personal preference.

Of course! It is both objective and subjective

Do you think everyone will agree with your ordering of the relative beauty of different pieces of music, or of different arrangements of the same piece?

of course not

Perhaps you could give the definition you are using, as long is it's not a circular one.

symmetry is balance, harmony, elegance

Black is a part of a higher white.

symmetry/assymmetry is used all the time in graphic design. It's part of another coupling. Something assymetrical is relative only to that which is symmetrical, and something assymetrical may extend to another symmetry.

Could you restate that in English, please?

one singular note does not exist by itself, it wouldnt sound like a 'note' unless there were other complimentary notes to it potentially. If I play C, I can hear E and G in my head automatically. It's like numbers. The number 3 includes all other natural numbers in existence for it to have that relevance of 3.

To use your phrase, 'magickal thinking'. As previously explained, both harmony and syncopation may occur in music, but neither is essential for music to be expressed.

Your missing my argument. This is not an argument about the philosophy of music. I created music for over ten years. My music has been on radio, television, and film, and has been signed to a Major distributor. I know how to make music. Music is not constructed in words, so dont get hung up on an irrelevant misunderstanding your having about my meaning.

How would you define the difference between a tone and a note?

A note is a rythmic refrence in time to a tone.

Um, the arrangement is not subjective, it's objectively observable.

it's subjective to the arranger/artist, an arrangment is a subjective construct of an objective musical language.

The appreciation is subjective, yes. That's the point at which you decide whether it is beautiful or not.

No it's not, unless your ignorant. I dont for many arrangements, that doesnt mean those notes, chords, or progressions themselves arnt beautiful in an of themselves, I just dont like they way they were expressed by the artist.

I think you're getting a bit hung up on different arrangements. I may find a particular performance of one arrangement beautiful, and another not. I may also dislike a particular arrangement so much that I find no performance of it beautiful. It's all subjective.

It's subjective TO YOU, but you are unable to identify objective beauty, so for you beauty is random and based soley on your feelings.

Tones can be beautiful. One continuous tone in isolation is not necessarily beautiful

that would be an arrangment

Your meaning is not at all clear.

When I hit one 'note', I made a tone and a 'beat' at the same time.

Your spelling task for this week:

Rhythm (1 'Y', 2 'H')
Arrangement (2 'E')

dude, you know what? {edit, I cant say it, some people charge 100 bucks a pop for one)

I am tired, have been working all day on production, cant fall asleep, and I'm cixelsyd. If you dont know what that MEANS, spell it backwards and find out.

If your going to play 3rd grade spelling teacher, do it with everyone. I find this spelling issue with me just a strawman. I have noted spelling errors from virtually everyone here, yet only mine seem to catch the attention of the little old lady school teachers.

Try to find my meaning, that is what is important.


0=meaning
1=text
2=interpretation

That still means the same thing as

0=meanin
1=texxt
2=inteepretation

it just looks different.

If I need an editor, I'll call you.

 

[Mojo]

His ideas about reality can only be used to manipulate the discussion if you allow them to.

And cleary I didnt, and clearly you are allowing them to

Let's see: who used Z's "ideas about reality" in his arguments? Was it me or you?

 

[WWHP]

What does this have to do with you using the wrong word?

what does my usage of a word have to do with the essence of my argument?

You claim knowledge of music, yet display a misunderstanding of some of the basic terms.

Music is not made of terms. I clarified my term because my term was confusing you. If you want to harp on that, do that in your own mind, it's not relevant to this argument

If we can't believe you on this, is it any surprise people disbelieve your other statements?

I dont ask anyone believe anything I say.

Perhaps you should admit that there are some things which are a mystery to you.

Dude, that's the funniest thing I have heard in an argument against me yet. Are you actually declaring that I dont accept the third value?

On the evidence of this and other threads, quite a few things.

THERE ARE AN INFINITE THINGS WHICH ARE MYSTERIOUS TO ME.

There is much more that I dont know about music than I do. I just happenend to have made music for along time, and at least achieved some artistic success even though I never achieved critical success. I know fundamentally how to contruct, arrange, and write, produce music, and was self taught. It is natural I may use language to describe music distinctly, yet that is irrelevant to making music itself. All musicians that I worked with are top in their form and are classically trained to various degrees, and they always seemed to understand me just fine.

Here is music I have written (for the most part), produced, arranged, working with other musicians

http://www.fifibastard.co.uk/downloadmp3/mp3downloadshere.htm

 

[WWHP]

Let's see: who used Z's "ideas about reality" in his arguments? Was it me or you?

Dude, your not following. This argument is essentially about reality. What is true, what is false, and what is mystery. If anyone argues against using the third value to deconstruct reality, then they are arguing their ideas about reality, period.

Z jumped in pretending his arguments were about reality in one way, but really they are about reality in another way. Z's ideas about reality are guided by his philosophical intepretation of Wicca. Wiccans practice magick. They use 'energy' and attempt to conform reality to their magical wills. This energy is no less controversial than Qi, yet Z perplexingly attacks qi too. Wiccan worship the *MYSTERY* of nature, yet Z argues there is no mystery. When confronted with this, he back pedals and says then that mystery is a function of knowledge, and is not to b e considered in terms of true and false, what ever the hell that means, it's contradictory, and he is a bulls**t artist AND his arguments dont hold wieght.

I personally dont think Z does this intentionally, I think he has a personality disorder and is naturally deceptive to himself and others.

Why do I think Z has a personality disorder? Well, he claims to take joy in manipulating people. That's a joy, keep in mind, about decieving people. He braggs about that and also appears unable to self reflect or consider polite requests in polite environments. To me, that's a sign of sociopathic personality disorder.

Of course I am going to call HIM on HIS ideas. That's not ad hom, that's calling a spade a spade.

BF

 

[flimflam_machine]

Warning! Loser-length post ahoy!

you just turned the socratic irony into something like a Boy Scout Pledge

Quote:
"'I know nothing (he says in the Apology), and if I really am the wisest person in the world, as the Delphic oracle suggests, then it is just because of the difference between me and others - they all think they know things, whereas I am aware that I know nothing'."

what is the importance of this quote? This doesnt to me seem to back your assertion, so I am perplexed as to how you are posting it.

The significance of the quote Bubb is that I have provided the context in which Socrates said "I know that I do not know" (paraphrased). It was in the context of comparing his level of wisdom to someone else’s. Unless he mentioned it in some other context I can see no reference in any of the translations of the story to "truth". If you are going to claim that this phrase in some way supports your third value you are going to have to provide much more evidence. At present I think you are reading far more into the statement than is actually there. I could be alone in this, anyone else care to venture an opinion?

You have absolutly no idea what you are talking about here. 'knowing not' and 'knowing' are both certainties about reality. The coupling of 'kn' and 'k' are essential to learning. We essentially learn from each other via some form of communication with each other.

I'd venture that "knowing not" and "knowing" are not certainties about reality, since they have to do with knowledge, rather than reality. When I die I will no longer know anything, but reality will continue much the same. "Knowing that I do not know" is particularly not a statement about reality, it is a statement about my knowledge, this is the fundamental reason that, in relation to reality, "unknown" does not act as a useful objective truth value.

Also, could I point out the enormous irony of you espousing the value of the phrase "I know that I do not know" since I have never encountered anyone with a more remarkable lack of awareness of their own lack of knowledge. We do learn from each other via communication Bubb, but you seem to have exempted yourself from this process.

To say 'I know not' is equal to saying ' i do not know if this is true, or if this is false'. It is a complete acceptance of something that is 'unknown'. It is the third value incarnate.

Yes, blindingly obvious. At an individual level, something can be unknown. That doesn't make it a value of truth.

If you cant see this, then you still do not understand what the third value is. If you dont understand what the third value is, then you cannot hope to fully appreciate the socratic dialectic.

The third value = unknown, you've written this yourself. Could you point out exactly how that fits into the Socratic dialectic? At the moment, I see no sign of it. In any case, if the third value already exists within the Socratic dialectic (and I don't believe that it does), why do we need your new one?

First off, the sense of 'self certainty' of existence is a pretty powerful sense of certainty. It's an experience, an ontology, that one has to obtain to develop true certainty to begin with. And once that is developed or experienced, that simply becomes a standard for ALL certainty. So, in dialectic, when presented with ideas and questions about truth, we can simply honestly self reflect, how close to certain can i be about this truth?

For example, on this thread, the argument about Steorn and the second law. Can I be as absolutly certain about the universal quality of the second law as I can be about my own existence?

I feel we're getting mixed up between two very different things here, or, at least, that we are talking about two levels of certainty that are so different that they can have very little relationship.

Firstly “the cogito”: “I think therefore I am”. What this says is simply there is nothing (and I mean absolutely nothing) that we can be certain of beyond our own existence. The whole of objective reality may simply be an illusion. So in that sense, no we cannot be as absolutely certain of “the universal quality of the second law as I can be about my own existence”. But then we can be certain of nothing to that degree so that doesn’t actually get us anywhere.

Dialectic has absolutely no bearing on this problem whatsoever, since any dialectic may simply be happening in a reality that doesn’t actually exist. There is no way round this problem, but most people just deal with it. We assume that our experience does reflect the existence of an external reality and so that we can know, to whatever degree, about that reality.

Me, I'm not a scientist, so I couldnt hope to be. Yet, I can certainly question a scientist who claims he can have that same level of certainty. For being is not a statistical truth, it's a ontological one.

Fair enough, but I don’t think that any scientist with a passing familiarity with the cogito would say that that they consider their certainty about thermodynamics to be of the same level as their certainty about their own existence. We are working at qualitatively different levels of knowledge.

Consider. If we cant be clear about what we dont know, how can we be clear about what we do? How can we KNOW we are clear about what we dont know? How can we be certain we are clear?

Not knowing is neccesary for CLARITY.

Now you need to clarify. What do you mean by this? We can all be aware that we cannot be certain about the existence of objective reality and that at that level we can “know” nothing at all other than of our own existence. But once we have assumed that objective reality exists, and that we share it, we can build up knowledge of it. Of course all of this can be undercut by the cogito and this is why it is not useful to talk about it as a standard for certainty since nothing operates on the same level. We require that initial assumption, if we make it, we can know plenty; if we don’t, we can know nothing.

Objective reality is part of the mystery, part of the unknown.
…
Objective reality is just the reality we all can agree on.

That sounds pretty contradictory to me Bubb, care to clarify?

Objective reality is 'out in the open'. Subjective reality is 'private'. What can be 'known' out in the open is ONLY objective reality, or what you are saying is 'implicite'. But there is that which is privatly UNKNOWN to the individual about objective reality, and that is the source for the dialectic, to exchange from the UNKNOWN to the KNOWN.

That’s not what implicit means. Implicit knowledge is something that we know, but that we do not know that we know. Note that this is not the same as “unknown”. In this context your second sentence becomes trivial, since it just describes the passing of knowledge from one party to another. This is very different from the Socratic dialectic which seeks to draw out what is implicitly known. In the example before, Socrates’ opponent already knows (implicitly) everything that is required to refute his own definition of “pious”. Socrates simply makes him aware of this, there is no transfer from the unknown to the known, but only from the implicitly to the explicitly known.

Finally, you cannot draw truth out of what is unknown (whether "privatly" [sic] or not).The fact that it is unkown does not in itself constitute a meaningful objective truth value.

That's a claim, not an argument. Please try to substantiate these claims you make. If you can't draw truth out of that which is unknown, how did we ever learn anything? That fact that we all share 'unknown' in common is enough to declare that it is an objective truth value.

Ok, let’s have an example. Using dialectic only, let us establish the truth about the financial state of the Sumatran timber industry, is it healthy? We can’t, because (unless you have a very esoteric set of interests) neither of us know about it, either explicitly or implicitly. It is unknown, and no amount of dialectic can make it known. Nevertheless it either is healthy or it isn’t and a bit of research will tell us. That was my point.

To claim it is NOT an objective truth value means your going back to saying there is NO THIRD VALUE and thus negate logical structures which use three operations, such as ternary logic.

I think ternary logic can work in electronics systems and at an individual level. It’s still not clear how it works objectively nor that it is valid when making objective (observer-independent truth value) statements about the real world.

 

[Mojo]

You cant have a note sounding the way it does with a harmony to that note by default.

While a harmony is inevitably going to be implied by a melody, that harmony is not necessarily going to be the same for all listeners. You keep citing Miles Davis: if you aren't aware that there can be more than one set of chords implied by a given melody a lot of what he (and any other post-bop jazz musician) did will be lost on you.

harmony and syncopation is how music is expressed. The element of musics are tones and notes.

The elements of music are melody, harmony and rhythm. Syncopation is not essential; nor is syncopation is synonymous with rhythm. Music without syncopation is, in fact, very common. We've all heard it: the tunes of nursery rhymes, for example, tend to lack syncopation.

 

[Mojo]

I personally dont think Z does this intentionally, I think he has a personality disorder and is naturally deceptive to himself and others.

BZZZZZZZZZZZT! Ad hom.

Why do I think Z has a personality disorder? Well, he claims to take joy in manipulating people.

So do you: you claim, for example, that OS 012 is a means of manipulating people into continuing an argument. You have stated that it would have failed if it produced a thread of "one or two pages in length".

 

[zooterkin]

what does my usage of a word have to do with the essence of my argument?

It's yet another example of you refusing to admit you are wrong. You used the wrong word, yet you won't simply come clean, you have to prevaricate.

Music is not made of terms. I clarified my term because my term was confusing you. If you want to harp on that, do that in your own mind, it's not relevant to this argument

You used the wrong word. Syncopation is not the same as rhythm. Syncopation is not necessary for music. Your term was not confusing me. Your use of the wrong term, particularly in a field you claim expertise in, tends to undermine all your other arguments. And the fact that you won't admit you've got it wrong says a lot about your unwillingness to properly engage in a debate.

Dude, that's the funniest thing I have heard in an argument against me yet. Are you actually declaring that I dont accept the third value?

You seem insistent that you know about music, to the level of producing it, yet don't have an elementary grasp of the basic concepts. They appear to be a mystery to you.

It is natural I may use language to describe music distinctly, yet that is irrelevant to making music itself.

Fine, but we are not making music here, we are talking about it. The tool we use for that is language. I presume you are using your own definition for 'distinctly'. My guess, 'wrongly' would be a close approximation?

 

[flimflam_machine]

Z jumped in pretending his arguments were about reality in one way, but really they are about reality in another way. Z's ideas about reality are guided by his philosophical intepretation of Wicca. Wiccans practice magick. They use 'energy' and attempt to conform reality to their magical wills. This energy is no less controversial than Qi, yet Z perplexingly attacks qi too. Wiccan worship the *MYSTERY* of nature, yet Z argues there is no mystery.

Bubb, this is really pathetic. If you assume that you know what everyone believes about everything based simply on one of their beliefs, then there's no point in having this discussion. You can just claim that all Wiccan's support you, this is just one long "no true Scotsman" fallacy.

Z was very clear that when discussing matters here he puts his beliefs to one side and argues from a rational, logical and fact based standpoint. You refused to engaged him on this level but dragged his Wiccan beliefs back into the debate. You posted a long list of "woo" beliefs that you suggested Z adhered to which proved that he should support you. Unfortunately for you he then pointed out that the vast majority of them he didn't actually believe, for example:

Quote:
You not only use the third value, but you worship it in nature.

No, that would be a druid.

I think you're just pissed off because someone you think should support you, absolutely doesn't.

When confronted with this, he back pedals and says then that mystery is a function of knowledge, and is not to b e considered in terms of true and false, what ever the hell that means, it's contradictory, and he is a bulls**t artist AND his arguments dont hold wieght.

You've not pointed out any contradiction in Z's model other than saying "if it's unknown, then you don't know its truth value", which is kind of his point. His argument holds together just fine: "mystery" is a knowledge value, not a truth value.

I personally dont think Z does this intentionally, I think he has a personality disorder and is naturally deceptive to himself and others.

Why do I think Z has a personality disorder? Well, he claims to take joy in manipulating people. That's a joy, keep in mind, about decieving people. He braggs about that and also appears unable to self reflect or consider polite requests in polite environments. To me, that's a sign of sociopathic personality disorder.

I cannot believe that you didn't actually choke on the vast quantity of irony in this post!

Z uses his occult knowledge to manipulate and decieve, and to some people, that qualifies as satanic. It's certainly dark.

Would you like to provide some evidence for this, the latest in a long line of personal slurs? Again I think that you're just jealous and pissed off. We (at least Jonny and I) liked and understood Z's model and rejected yours. Of course this shouldn't have happened because your idea is right!! (cue foot-stamping and throwing toys from pram). So Z must have manipulated us through some dark power, rather than just providing a clear, intuitive and logically sound idea.

 

[WWHP]

This is my last post for this evening. I am hardly in coherent form right now, havent even slept yet this evening, so I hope this goes well.

Warning! Loser-length post ahoy!

Thank GOD you have finally transcended that ignorant badscience.net social restriction that scares anyone into writing in depth by assosciating people as losers when they do. Well dont worry, I wont shame you for it like Ben will. I'm glad it's a long post, that means we are getting into deeper meaning.

The significance of the quote Bubb is that I have provided the context in which Socrates said "I know that I do not know" (paraphrased). It was in the context of comparing his level of wisdom to someone else’s.

That is your interpretation, that is not neccesarily Socrates limited usage or observation about the value of 'knowing not'

Unless he mentioned it in some other context I can see no reference in any of the translations of the story to "truth".

It doesnt matter WHO said it or WHY they said it, it contains something MEANINGFUL in relationship to the third value and certainty.

If you are going to claim that this phrase in some way supports your third value you are going to have to provide much more evidence.

You are approaching this as some sort of historical excercise, and i am approaching it as a philosophical excercise. "I know that I dont know' contains LAYERS of meaning, and has direct relationship to an experience of 'certainty'. I hardly doubt that Socrates was simply unaware of something that I am, that would be arrogant of me, just like it's ignorant of you to assume you understand the limit socrates had in his philosophical understanding.

At present I think you are reading far more into the statement than is actually there. I could be alone in this, anyone else care to venture an opinion?

I think I am explaining something about the meaning that you DONT SEE, and thus assume it's not there.

I'd venture that "knowing not" and "knowing" are not certainties about reality, since they have to do with knowledge, rather than reality.

Bullpoop. Me knowing that I dont know has nothing to do with knowledge, it has to do with UNDERSTANDING.

Make the distinction between understanding and knowledge, and you understand dialectic.

When I die I will no longer know anything, but reality will continue much the same.

what happens when you die you simply DONT KNOW, and any idea you have about that is your personal belief system, and so what if you dont?

"Knowing that I do not know" is particularly not a statement about reality, it is a statement about my knowledge, this is the fundamental reason that, in relation to reality, "unknown" does not act as a useful objective truth value.

It is a statement about your UNDERSTANDING of your BEING and your PERCEPTION of reality. It's ontological, not epistemological.

Also, could I point out the enormous irony of you espousing the value of the phrase "I know that I do not know" since I have never encountered anyone with a more remarkable lack of awareness of their own lack of knowledge. We do learn from each other via communication Bubb, but you seem to have exempted yourself from this process.

In your mind, perhaps.

Yes, blindingly obvious. At an individual level, something can be unknown. That doesn't make it a value of truth.

first off, it DOES make it a value of truth to that person. Secondly, we all have shared unknowns in common. In Socrates time, it was the actions, desires, and whims of the gods that were the shared unknowns. Today, the shared unknowns are dark matter, UFO, Iraq War resolutions, life extention.

Death has been a shared unknown since time immemorial.

The third value = unknown, you've written this yourself. Could you point out exactly how that fits into the Socratic dialectic?

Sure. I dont know what your talking about, can you explain?

At the moment, I see no sign of it. In any case, if the third value already exists within the Socratic dialectic (and I don't believe that it does), why do we need your new one?

I dont say it exists in the socratic dialectic in a formal sense, I do suggest it is inherint in the socratic method and I also suggest Socrates had to have been fundamentally aware of it.

If it isnt in the socratic method or if he was not aware of it, that still doesnt make an argument against it.

I feel we're getting mixed up between two very different things here, or, at least, that we are talking about two levels of certainty that are so different that they can have very little relationship.

bullpoop. Certainty is CERTAINTY. You can have a generalized understanding of certainty as a term, and use it correctly in semantics relative to your issue, and then you can have an ontological experience of CERTAINTY and discover it's true foundation for all possible usage.

Firstly “the cogito”: “I think therefore I am”.

your gonna hate me for saying this, but this is also incomplete. The completeness is 'I think and feel, therefore i am"

What this says is simply there is nothing (and I mean absolutely nothing) that we can be certain of beyond our own existence.

and the nature of that existence? if you answer that question, then you get the third value. Think about it. If the only thing we can be purely certain about is our existence, then what is our existence to be for us to be so certain about it yet so UNRESOLVED regarding it's objective meaning?

The whole of objective reality may simply be an illusion.

But then it is an objective illusion, we can still be certain about it because it is mutually experienced and observed. I think we can be certain about three things with perfect certainty.

I exist.
you exist
we exist.

Note that I only can get you existing and we existing because of an objective reality. We can be certain therefore that an objective reality exists, either as illusion or phenomenon it matters not, it still exists.

So in that sense, no we cannot be as absolutely certain of “the universal quality of the second law as I can be about my own existence”.

Okay, now can you be as certain about the second law existing universally as you can about the existence of, say, your house?

But then we can be certain of nothing to that degree so that doesn’t actually get us anywhere.

YES WE CAN. that is a philosophical misnomer. Our ideas about it may evolve over time, but we can be certain that ALL OF US EXIST, and if then, we can be EQUALLY CERTAIN that there is a shared reality as opposed to a subjective reality.

OS 012 is about the distinctions in OBJECTIVE and SUBJECTIVE reality.

Dialectic has absolutely no bearing on this problem whatsoever, since any dialectic may simply be happening in a reality that doesn’t actually exist.

I dont think you understand what dialectic is yet to make a statement about that. It is ONLY through dialectic we could ever even parse our existence into a statement and say 'I EXIST'!

We would not be able to contruct the truth about the certainty of our ontological being if it were not for our discussions with others.

There is no way round this problem, but most people just deal with it.

You mean " I dont see a way out of this problem, and I havent met anybody yet who has"

We assume that our experience does reflect the existence of an external reality and so that we can know, to whatever degree, about that reality.

we dont assume it, we EXPERIENCE IT DIRECTLY.

Fair enough, but I don’t think that any scientist with a passing familiarity with the cogito would say that that they consider their certainty about thermodynamics to be of the same level as their certainty about their own existence. We are working at qualitatively different levels of knowledge.

Sure, if you put it to them in an argument. But when 'anomalies' occur like Steorn, why are we not rushing to verify it instead of dismissing it as outlandish?

Consider, let's say the probablity of the second laws violation is incredibly incomprhensible to our current understanding. Well, with the current mindset amongst many academics, doesnt it seem plausable that if such an anomaly was to occur they would scoff it out of thier perception and thus fail to notice it or consider it?

James Randi would have us not consider Steorn until thier verification comes in. Yet, if what they have is true, for the sake of discussion, can't you see how such an attitude could prevent a dynamic scientific discovery from happening?



Flim, I looked at the rest of your post, and I'm sorry, I dont have the mental energy to respond right now. You asked some more good questions and I want to respond when I am clearer.

Much better line of questioning by the way, I look forward to the rest of our discussion. Really.

You cant tell that I am learning from you?


BF

 

[flimflam_machine]

Edit: Double post