Skepticism and The Normal

[WWHP]

(BTW - to the mods - don't close this thread just yet. YES, we've refuted everything Rome has to say. YES, we've proven his lack of capabilities in English, philosophy, logic, and reason. But I want to see how this current quad of M.C. goes - and we're not even halfway done.)

Zaay, I request you either respond directly to my arguments and maintain this discussion, or stop harassing and trolling this thread.

This comment you make is highly deceptive and manipulative, and you yourself have failed to even respond to my rebuttals, and continue to troll instead. This is damage control, and it's not working.

Either come to this discussion clean and with argument, or I will report you to the mods for trolling.

BF

 

[Z]

I shall open with:

Bond Street

I'll position at Baker Street, and am making an early invocation of the Queen's Curtsey, which removes the Red Line from play entirely.

Of course, now I'm stuck here unless someone takes Aldwych...

 

[WWHP]

Not a single issue you have raised has been supported by evidence, and "argument", insofar as your attempts at it are concerned, has been merely argumentative and devoid of meaningful content. Otherwise there is no issue here to confuse me or anyone else. Only you are confused. Sweet of you to ask, however.

PV, I dont understand what you are talking about and want to see it from your point of view.

Can you explain what I have failed to support in my argument?

Please advise.


BF

 

[Z]

I think the issue of beauty deserves further discussion. It's interesting to note that philosophers have been steadily moving away from an objective point of view on beauty since the late 16th-early 17th century. Plato, of course, envisioned beauty as an ideal, a thing which existed apart from perceived objects, and to which perceived objects could be compared. For Plato, beauty was absolutely objective.

As our world has reduced in relative size, and more populations have met and exchanged ideas, the thought of an objective standard of beauty has begun to fade away. In Plato's time, all he knew were his own people, and perhaps a few exotic strangers or near neighbors. In other words, he shared the same preferences as those around him, by and large, and those who didn't share his preferences were simply wrong.

But globalization and the Internet, if nothing else, should dispel this idea of 'objective beauty', 'objective good', etc.

I think it's possible to demonstrate that beauty cannot be objective through logic. Let's see....

I'm no good at crafting proper formal arguments, but I'll make a semi-formal structure here, and hope someone else can clean it up a bit:

If we are given that beauty is an objective concept, then we mean that a thing is considered beautiful if it possessive certain objective qualities (Rome mentions symmetry, for example). Objective qualities are those which hold true for all observers. Let us say that a set of given objective qualities which determines beauty is called an aesthetic (NOTE: I'm not sure if this is the right term or not, but let's use it here as such - or someone can correct me with the proper term).

Let us also say that an objective statement is one that can stand independent of viewpoints. "Bob thinks squares have four corners" possesses a viewpoint, but if we remove this, it becomes "Squares have four corners", which is an objective statement.

Now, we know that, according to Rome's aesthetic, Angelina Jolie is a beautiful woman.

However, according to the aesthetic of the Pai Dong, along the Thai-Burma border, Angelina Jolie is not a beautiful woman. For one thing, her neck is entirely too short.

In order to make these both, according to these definitions, objective statements, we must remove reference to the perceptors involved.

Hence, we are reduced to two statements.

Angelina Jolie is a beautiful woman.
Angelina Jolie is not a beautiful woman.

Both statements are now objective and true.

However, both statements now contradict each other.

One resolution is to clarify, by adding back in the subjective portions; but doing so renders both statements subjective once again!

Another resolution is to declare one or the other aesthetic to be wrong. However, this seems like thought-police activity to me... By what right does one person declare their aesthetic superior to any other?

A third solution is to examine the aesthetic for common factors, and make a supercedent meta-aesthetic. However, this might end up coming up with no common factors - which would lead us to understand that beauty is dependent entirely upon the observer! - or, worse, reduce us to one or two common factors - factors probably also shared by women considered ugly (such as, they have hair and teeth and the usual number of eyes), reducing the meaning of beauty to meaninglessness.

So claiming that beauty is objective leads to a contradiction of statements, as seen above, with a few unsatisfactory choices for resolving the contradiction.

 

[WWHP]

Even if I grant that an idea is replicated in the human mind, if that idea is forgotten, then it's not there anymore and therefore cannot be replicating. The idea does not spread. Similarly, if the secret is forgotten, then it will never be shared.

A forgotten idea does not mean that the idea did not spread. Just because all ideas to spread, make copies, etc etc, does not mean they all have a lifetime shelflife.

So the question then naturally must be asked, what qualities do certain ideas have that others don't to enable them to never be forgotten, and spread through time, over thousands of years.

Also, your contention that ideas replicates in a person's mind is incorrect.

ever 'vaguley' remember something?

If it were correct, then we would, all of us, have enormous numbers of copies of redundant ideas in our heads and that number of redundant ideas would be increasing all the time for every idea, and that isn't the case.

Your argument here is founded upon the assumption that the observable truth of the replication of idea automatically means continual shelf life, and that's not the argument I am making.

Just because a person's ideas disappear after they die does not change the fact that those ideas existed at some point.

agreed.

In fact, insofar as a person is more than just the sum of their material parts, but also the operation of those parts to produce personality, memory, thought, emotion and behavior, I could easily argue that you cannot find the person after they have died. Just because the person is no longer there does not mean that they never existed at all.

I believe you are suggesting that the idea that 'human beings are human beings, ideas are ideas, and ideas are not human beings' is incorrect, i.e. that is what you are attempting to negate, correct?

I just want to make sure we stay on point and dont drift off into some unneccesary philosophical speculation about death.

You can go unconscious, you can go into a coma, you can be brain dead, and we can still observe that you are a human being, yet you have no ideas.

I request you apply the law of identity, A=A, to this concept of idea and human being

Also, just because a person has a physical, material reality does not mean that the person doesn't also exist as an idea.

All things can have conceptual existence, not just people, so? The point is that there is distinction between the two, a clear distinction to the reality of the objectively physical and measurable, and then the internal conceptual/idea.

Not all ideas are alike, and how we value an idea in terms of it's truth value, is also relative to how that idea spreads and affects behavior.

There may be a clear distinction between the physical, material object that is a human being and the conceptualization of that human being, but humans do, in fact, exist as both the object and the conceptualization.

We can exist with or without conceptualizing in princaple, but conceptualizing cannot in princaple exist without us.

Now, if your saying something like, "Human beings are physical, material objects, and ideas about those human beings do not necessarily reflect the physical, material object and are not necessary for that physical, material object to exist," then this is true. However, this is not what you said.

One of the most important distinctions to get in this dialectic about idea is the distinction between the idea you have about what I am saying, the text communicating my meaning, and then my actual meaning. Those are three powerful distinctions going on at once in this discussion. So perhaps that is what i 'meant' in what I wrote, but what I mean in what I wrote was not communicated to you in a way that you could understand, so therefore, we allow the further dialouge to reveal each other's meaning, and not make quick assumptions.

I could quibble here as well, but as long as you aren't saying that all conflicts can be resolved so that all parties benefit, then I think we agree, in principle, on this point as well.

hmmm, I dont think we are on the same page. In princaple, i do think conflict can be resolved for both sides to win, and most conflict. I say this is true in princaple. I say this is true in princaple because we cannot seperate any conflict, war, violence, what have you, away from our ideas about things. And our ideas about things are highly conflicting even in harmonious environments, much less violent ones. However, in princaple, I think we can reduce conflict down to a set of conflicting ideas, and I do think that if we have a proper environment for those conflicting ideas to play out, then we can come to find reasonable, workable, and winnable solutions for all parties. Now, this is not to say that tragedy does not and will not happen, but I am saying that in princaple, conflict and war can be a very benificial thing for humanity when it is allowed to game through the conflict of idea

Again, this is an ad hominem attack. Counterproductive.

Again, I apologize for those, I had some delusions about you and was miffed earlier, I read you wrong. I value you kind of mind.

Okay, "metalogical" has, as best I can tell, two definitions. Here is one, "beyond the scope or province of logic." The other is "relating to the metaphysics of logic," out of Webster's unabridged (2nd edition, old dictionary).

I define metalogic as the set that orders logic. However, OS 012 is a meta cognitive logic, so it orders how we percieve truth value.

I am not able to present this aspect like i would like to at this stage, but what i am working on with a few others is something rather exciting and enlightening. Bivalent logic is a subset of ternary logic, which means ternary logic is the metalogic of binary.

I was assuming the first definition of metalogical (it was the only definition I could find at the time), in which case logical metalogic is a contradiction. You must be assuming the second definition, "metaphysics of logic," and I'm really not sure what "metaphysics of logic" means exactly.

Hmm, I'm not really sure either, other than simply understanding those words. I never heard that phrase before. I mean, 'metaphysics' is the 'metalogic', so to speak, of physics. And metaphilosophy is the study of the philosophy of philosophy. Ternary logic, some are suggesting, could be the metalogic of binary.

OS 012 is a metalogic because it defines how we all use truth values at the metacognitive level. It's just a language for it, I didnt invent it, we already all have OS 012.

So, if you were using the second definition of metalogic, then I grant you that I was using the wrong definition. So, were you using the second definition?

I don't think i was really using either, as the first one was kind of close, but too vague. To be honest, i think 'metalogic' is kind of tricky to define. Academicaly, it appears to have a very strict usage, and I believe Godel was considered to be the one to create 'metalogics' of proofs and theorums significantly here.

I think it's most important to understand how I use the word 'meta' first and foremost. It's not always used the same way, it has slight variations in different fields. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-

I define meta as the highest ordering pattern integrity governing smaller or simpler systems. I define OS 012 as a metalogic in the sense that it is a logical representation of how our meta cognitive faculties order ideas.

Ideas affect our behavior, so ideas themselves could also be considered 'meta' relative to how our ideas affect behavior, reaction, etc etc.

I'm not sure if i have addressed everything, but I think so. Back to you.


BF

 

[WWHP]

I think the issue of beauty deserves further discussion

Indeed then. So let's have a sober, calm exchange here, as this perfectly highlights our contentions, and what better resolution could any two people find than a discussion over the beautiful?

And I think it fair that both of us should define beauty in our own words for this discussion, agree?

I define beauty as the perfect symmetry of the external and internal.

How do you define beauty?

. It's interesting to note that philosophers have been steadily moving away from an objective point of view on beauty since the late 16th-early 17th century.

Links?

I am not so sure about a couple of things regarding this claim. How was this determined?

Plato, of course, envisioned beauty as an ideal, a thing which existed apart from perceived objects, and to which perceived objects could be compared. For Plato, beauty was absolutely objective.

Hmmm, I can't say I am familiar enough with Plato's arguments or not to know how accurate this is, but if it is accurate, there is a contradiction, for it appears that Plato was saying, if I take your text at face value, is that beauty is a metaphysical object. I dont see how you concluded from that that for Plato, beauty was absolutly objective if he defines beauty as metaphysical.

And then beauty could be considered an objective 'ideal', an 'ideal' that everyone strives to disover in objects around them.

Which brings in another twist, can 'ideals' be objective? Yes, then can be objective, yet they are soley composed of metaphysics.

So beauty here on this light alone could be considered therefore an objective 'ideal'.

What objective ideal could define beauty in other terms? Perfection? What is more perfect that pure symmetry?

If there is disagreement here, it would most likely lay in the word 'symmetry', as you or others may have a different understanding of the term. I assume this because you and others assumed cinder blocks and square buildings have symmetry, but they are not considered beautiful. And this is not the symmetry that I speak of, the symmetry I speak of is a refined and multiple balance. In art, assymetry is still refrencing and depending upon highly symmetrical placements. When something is 'off' a bit, it merely is highlighting another symmetry that is not refrenced in either visual or sonic expression.

The space between the notes is part of the symmetry of music. We dont suggest that the music stops because there was a beat or two of utter silence.

As our world has reduced in relative size, and more populations have met and exchanged ideas, the thought of an objective standard of beauty has begun to fade away.

I understand this may be your personal view, but i dont follow. You dont explain how you came to that conclusion.

AJ is regarded all over the world as a very beautiful woman, and the internet just distributes more pictures, and her website indeed would have many worldwide visitors.

In Plato's time, all he knew were his own people, and perhaps a few exotic strangers or near neighbors. In other words, he shared the same preferences as those around him, by and large, and those who didn't share his preferences were simply wrong.

Yet that which is beautiful is shared amongst all peoples. Even if tastes in woman were random, each society would still have what they would consider 'beautiful' woman.

Z, do you think the following statement is subjective or objective?

Nature is beautiful

But globalization and the Internet, if nothing else, should dispel this idea of 'objective beauty', 'objective good', etc.

This to me doenst seem to be very well thought through, but you havent explained your steps to me so I cant tell.

I think it's possible to demonstrate that beauty cannot be objective through logic. Let's see....

Z, there is no way that bivalent logic could even come close to addressing the objective of beauty, but I will see what it is you suggest.

If we are given that beauty is an objective concept, then we mean that a thing is considered beautiful if it possessive certain objective qualities (Rome mentions symmetry, for example). Objective qualities are those which hold true for all observers. Let us say that a set of given objective qualities which determines beauty is called an aesthetic (NOTE: I'm not sure if this is the right term or not, but let's use it here as such - or someone can correct me with the proper term).

I dont think that it is a correct term, as aesthetic seems to relate to the subjective experience of beauty or cultivations for beauty.

So lets say then that a set of objective qualities for beauty could just be called 'objecive qaulity for beauty' and keep it simple.

Let us also say that an objective statement is one that can stand independent of viewpoints. Now, we know that, according to Rome's aesthetic, Angelina Jolie is a beautiful woman.

Hmm, Z, are you saying that my aesthetics are the judge for AJ's beauty? Would she still not be considered beautiful regardless?

However, according to the aesthetic of the Pai Dong, along the Thai-Burma border, Angelina Jolie is not a beautiful woman. For one thing, her neck is entirely too short.

Link? And even if this is true, this does not mean anything. For one or two tribes somewhere not to find her beautiful does not mean she isnt, rather, it means that they have yet to discover her beauty.

How is it that one piece of music or art, or even a woman, can escape my arousal in one moment, but after consideration, I come to find beauty? How can I come to find beauty if it doesnt exist?

How have your own tastes changed over the years? Did you find the same things beautiful when you were 10 years old? did you come to find the beauty in those things over time?

In order to make these both, according to these definitions, objective statements, we must remove reference to the perceptors involved.

What are the 'perceptors' involved? What does that mean?

Hence, we are reduced to two statements.

Angelina Jolie is a beautiful woman.
Angelina Jolie is not a beautiful woman.

Both statements are now objective and true.

However, both statements now contradict each other.

Zaay, I am sorry, but this makes no sense to me. You cant parse meaning of beauty into two sentences and evaluate objectively that way about the concept 'beauty', you can only hope to find a contradiction in my argument.

If beauty is both objective and subjective, then that means when an objectively beautiful woman looks into my eyes, I am also having a very subjective experience of beauty, in harmony with her beauty.

Same with nature.

Is nature's beauty subjective? If I gaze at a sunset, am I find beauty in myself AND the sunset, or just in myself?

If I am having a grumpy day, and am self absorbed in stress, and fail to notice the sunset, is the sunset any less beautiful?

If we have chemical reactions to phenomena that produce beautiful experiences, which we do, how is it then that our bio-chemistry knows to apply that to sunsets and Angelina Jolie, and not dog poop?

How about this, to switch it around.

If I were to say that 'vomit' is disgusting, is that subjective or objective?

Is vomit objectively ugly, or am I ugly and vomit is just vomit?

How is it that viewing 'vomit' will make many people want to vomit? That's actually an interesting phenomenon, some say it relates back to our tribal days, and when one person ate poisonous food, it made everyone vomit just to be safe. Is something objective going on there?

Okay, now let's erase that from our minds, and get back to BEAUTY!

Is Love Beautiful? Love IS beautiful. Is that a subjective or objective statement?

One resolution is to clarify, by adding back in the subjective portions; but doing so renders both statements subjective once again!

Another resolution is to declare one or the other aesthetic to be wrong. However, this seems like thought-police activity to me... By what right does one person declare their aesthetic superior to any other?

We have both shared and unique aesthetics, I am sure you can agree to that, no?

A third solution is to examine the aesthetic for common factors, and make a supercedent meta-aesthetic. However, this might end up coming up with no common factors - which would lead us to understand that beauty is dependent entirely upon the observer! - or, worse, reduce us to one or two common factors - factors probably also shared by women considered ugly (such as, they have hair and teeth and the usual number of eyes), reducing the meaning of beauty to meaninglessness.

Or, just keep it simple and honest and OBJECTIVE. It is objective to state that beauty is both objective and subjective. When perfect symmetry is 'discovered', it is found beautiful, both immediatly and eventualy.

So claiming that beauty is objective leads to a contradiction of statements, as seen above, with a few unsatisfactory choices for resolving the contradiction.

Z, your contradicted yourself because made up your own logical system again with built in contradictions!

We come to truth about beauty more by asking questions about beauty than by attempting to parse meanings of beauty into logical propositions.

Your statements are all that, statements, all !!!!!!!! and no ?????????

and beauty is both the ! and the ?, no? Beauty is Perfect Symmetry!

There is a perfect symmetry between objective and subjective when you can observe them both objectively and subjectively at once.


With love and beauty,
Bubblefish

 

[WWHP]

Okay, now back to bed with my beautiful little boy.

Are children beautiful?

 

[Mojo]

And the number one Mystical Argument against objective beauty goes to, Zaay!

If no one is present to observe 'sunrise', then there is no 'sunrise', there is only mystery, which is beautiful.

Z didn't suggest that there would be no sunrise if there was no observer, just that if there is no observer the sunrise can't be said to be beautiful, because "beauty" is a subjective property assigned by the observer.

 

[sinnikal]

I'd put that down as a false objective then.
Score one F.O.

 

[Mojo]

They are mutually distinctive, they are not mutually exclusive, you cannot have one of them without the other.

They can't both apply to the same property.

It's very simple: "objective" means the same for all viewpoints, subjective means not the same for all viewpoints. If you claim that something is both objective and subjective then there is an inherent contradicion there, if you're using the same definition of "not" as the rest of us.

 

[Mojo]

How do you figure that your success rate has been 100%? What standard are you using?

Blind assertion. After a while he claims that he's been successful whatever happens.

See what I mean?

That's it. I am about to deal with Wayne's analysis. Other than Wayne, all other arguments coming from Zaay, Jonny, Flim, or any of the badscience crowd are now officially refuted beyond any possible logical or reasonable argument.

Period.

See also his current sig:

I have advanced my argument on the necessity of the third value for virtually 50 pages, so yes, there indeed is the argument for Mystery or Unknown as a rational truth value, and it has trumped in the JREF and BadScience.net communities all rebuttals, and remains undefeated in rational discussion.

See also my earlier reference to Chris Morris in this context.

 

[Z]

See what I mean?


See also his current sig:


See also my earlier reference to Chris Morris in this context.

Wow... just... wow. I knew he was egotistical and ignorant, but I never imagined he was also completely delusional.

After 50 pages of his waffling and backpeddling, he claims victory, in spite of his every argument being torn to shreds?

Yep, I think 'ignore' is the best place for him.

... Of course, given that he doesn't grasp the meaning of terms like 'subjective', 'objective', 'unknown', 'symmetry', etc... it's quite probable he also doesn't understand terms like 'refuted', 'win', 'advance'.

I know! It's a public service announcement! Big stars go on television to make theirs - small fish like Rome here have to do theirs on internet fora! "Hi, kids... if you do drugs, you'll turn out like me. Look how silly I am!"

...Well, at least it's more feasible than him ACTUALLY thinking he's gained ground here.

Gentle Reader, I think it's best left to you, at this point. Make your own judgement calls here. There's not much use in repeating the same arguments over and over when he absolutely refuses to participate in civil discussion with an open mind.

As for me, I think I just might start a thread on the subjective nature of beauty elsewhere, rather than keeping this poor, dead thread in a zombified state forever.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

"Lets use Bubblefish's system is solving some particular problems"

F...O..

 

[jimbob]

See what I mean?


See also his current sig:

I have advanced my argument on the necessity of the third value for virtually 50 pages, so yes, there indeed is the argument for Mystery or Unknown as a rational truth value, and it has trumped in the JREF and BadScience.net communities all rebuttals, and remains undefeated in rational discussion.

See also my earlier reference to Chris Morris in this context.

Well, at least he now spells "argrument" as "argument", so there is some progress...

Jim

The Rushton ruling of 1984, still means that BF can't make any moves in MC, see skinnal's reference.

Baker Street

 

[sinnikal]

Last edited by Bubblefish : Yesterday at 01:40 PM. Reason: clarity

Clarity! Oh how I laughed

 

[Mojo]

Clarity! Oh how I laughed

You have to admit that he seems to have made a pretty good job of eradicating it from the post.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

Okay, now back to bed with my beautiful little boy.

Are children beautiful?

Some babies have a face that "only a mother could love"...

Not a reference to your baby, just pointing out the subjectivity involved even here.

 

[Z]

Some babies have a face that "only a mother could love"...

Not a reference to your baby, just pointing out the subjectivity involved even here.

Agreed.... some children are downright ugly.

 

[WWHP]

Z didn't suggest that there would be no sunrise if there was no observer, just that if there is no observer the sunrise can't be said to be beautiful, because "beauty" is a subjective property assigned by the observer.

I know Zaay didnt say if there was no observer there would be no sunrise, he said there simply wouldn't be anything beautiful. I am saying that if there was no observer, there also would be no sunrise, as sunrise is soley rooted in a point of view. No point of view, no sunrise, no sunrise, no beauty.

 

[WWHP]

They can't both apply to the same property.

They do apply to the same property all the time.

Consciousness exists. Is that an objective or subjective statement, or both?

Getting stabbed by a knife is painful. Is that an objective or subjective statement, or both?

It's very simple: "objective" means the same for all viewpoints, subjective means not the same for all viewpoints.

Ok! So then is 'Angelina Jolie is a dump truck" an objective statement now? Because if that is your definition of objective, then you are in contradiction to almost everyone here.

Mojo, please dont lecture me on objective and subjective, not only am I quite clear on the matter, but this is also what I have been saying. You can't contradict me by agreeing with me.

If you claim that something is both objective and subjective then there is an inherent contradicion there, if you're using the same definition of "not" as the rest of us.

Consciousness is both objective and subjective. Disagree?


BF