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Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: .::Tin Can::. on October 19, 2005, 09:03:38 pm

Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: .::Tin Can::. on October 19, 2005, 09:03:38 pm: Things seem to be flying by my head a lot lately, as well as other peoples; and it seems today, after watching more news in my Engineering Graphics Class, something hit me about how politics are discussed these days, as opposed to the past.

1) Anything seen by the person speaking is considered fact.
2) Anything seen by the person speaking that disagrees with them is disregarded.

3) Anything heard from someone else that disagrees with the speaker is a "liar" or "misinformed".
4) Anything heard from someone else that agrees with the speaker is considered "correct" and "well-educated".

5) Any news reports, stories, and statistics that disagree with the speaker are considered "false" and "biased".
6) Any news reports, stories, and statistics that agree with the speaker are considered "truth" and "factual".

7) Anything that is only rumored and cannot be confirmed that agrees with the speaker is still taken for fact, and is considered "most likely true".
8) Anything that is only rumored and cannot be confimed that disagrees with the speaker is considered "conspiracy" and "only a rumor".

9) Anything, overall, that agrees with what the speaker says is cited and taken into account in all their speeches and discussions.
10) Anything, overall, that disagrees with the speaker is disregarded and never included in any speeches or discussions, and is most likely ignored.

Right, right?
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Setekh on October 19, 2005, 09:08:36 pm: I can concur to that generally. Though I wouldn't call it "new", the idea of truth has been so poorly guarded that these days I am not surprised that such a ludicrous situation has arisen around how we regard the words of our 'leaders'.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: .::Tin Can::. on October 19, 2005, 09:34:14 pm: Frankly I got tired of the "this is credible, and this is not, because this agrees with me, and this doesn't."
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Setekh on October 19, 2005, 09:38:39 pm: Seems to me that it's basically the logical conclusion to relativism. I could be wrong... depending on if you disagree with me. ;)
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: .::Tin Can::. on October 19, 2005, 09:41:06 pm: If I knew what the first part of that sentence meant... I might be able to make some kind of accurate statement...
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Setekh on October 19, 2005, 09:43:57 pm: [q]rel·a·tiv·ism (rl-t-vzm)
n. Philosophy

A theory, especially in ethics or aesthetics, that conceptions of truth and moral values are not absolute but are relative to the persons or groups holding them.[/q]

It's right because it's right according to me. Different right for different people. That is to say, it's all relative.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: mikhael on October 19, 2005, 10:03:56 pm: You oversimplify relativism to the point of absurdity. Relativism also refers to the concept that right and wrong, good and evil (and all other binary dichotomies) are dependent not only the person holding the idea, but also on the situation in which it applies. Relativism allows for analog values in dichotomies that would otherwise be binary.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Kazan on October 19, 2005, 10:07:54 pm: yeah.. setekh you're sounding like a fundie :P

facts aren't relative - the perception of them is.
Title: Re: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Kamikaze on October 19, 2005, 10:36:05 pm: Quote
Originally posted by .::Tin Can::.
something hit me about how politics are discussed these days, as opposed to the past.

No, it's always been like that. An example off the top of my head is Thomas Jefferson. He was sympathetic to the anti-federalists and was a proponent of a small, weak central government. Of course, that changed when he became president.
Title: Re: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 19, 2005, 10:52:17 pm: Quote
Originally posted by .::Tin Can::.
Things seem to be flying by my head a lot lately, as well as other peoples; and it seems today, after watching more news in my Engineering Graphics Class, something hit me about how politics are discussed these days, as opposed to the past.

LIST OF STUFF

Right, right?

:D
You know when I first read this I almost wrote a feature length article for this website talking about all the ways I agreed with his statements and about how certain politicians do this all the time(Cough George Bush) (Cough other fundamentalist conservative names).
:doubt:
But you know what, I suddenly realized that I was doing what he was talking about. (I hadn't started writing but was about to) I was citing in my head all the different times I have watched my beloved president muddle through a speech citing the most ridiculous sources and disregarding any time I have heard him cite valid sources and speak intelligibly(Okay barely but he's a chimp. What do you expect. Yall have intelligent leaders right. :p )

The point is we all do this constantly because it is the way arguments are made. You put forward your support while citing but downplaying those sources against you.
Title: Re: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Rictor on October 19, 2005, 11:12:57 pm: Quote
Originally posted by .::Tin Can::.
9) Anything, overall, that agrees with what the speaker says is cited and taken into account in all their speeches and discussions.
10) Anything, overall, that disagrees with the speaker is disregarded and never included in any speeches or discussions, and is most likely ignored.

Right, right?

By tards, yes. By rational people interested in genuine ideas and their communication, no. The trick is to only discuss with people in Group B, talking to people in Group A is a waste of time. Though it's never as clear cut as all that, and I'll be the first to admit to just not being interested in debate at times, generally you can tell the difference.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 19, 2005, 11:20:31 pm: You know though we can all be tards and we can all be interested in genuine ideas and communications of them. There is no brightline rule.

For example, aldo and I got into such a argument we were acting like tards trying not to see each others POV until we finally got sore fingers and realized we had lives and just agreed to look at the others POV and agree to let live.

I think the best rule of thumb is to look for the following cues to see if someone is being a tard or genuine.
___________

TARD: You're wrong. My view is

Genuine: That is an valid view, I see it like this because.

___________

TARD: That is an interesting fantasy life you are living...

Genuine: I would say that you are looking at it with a different BLANK in mind (insert goal, value, point)

_______

TARD: STFU, your ideas are wrong, your family is going to die.

Genuine: I respect your opinion and we are obviously not going to agree.
__________

We have all been guilty of being TARDS. It is when we close our minds to other views.

Osiri <-- Has to learn not to talk so much. He has sore fingers again.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Kosh on October 19, 2005, 11:37:50 pm: This is an age of suspicion and paranoia. The media over there seems to try its best to make people afraid of everything, and it is succeeding.

EDIT: But Fox has also gone out of its way to discredit extremely reliable news sources like NPR and the BBC. If those two sources are so bad, then why are they blocked by the government here and not Fox?
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 20, 2005, 12:07:40 am: It is not so much fear that the media sows. It is hatred. Hatred is a much better seller than anything else. The media forces divisions in society. Where there is a difference of opinion the media wants more. You see a difference of opinion is something you can walk away from but force a anger and hatred into that difference and you can sell air time.

The recent legislation about gays is perfect example. The reality is that no one cares what gays do in their own homes if they don't actually try to think about it. But if you publicize the hell out of it and make sure that the things on the TV are the most one sided things (for both sides though) people inevitably take sides.

If you drive division deep enough you get a hatred there of the othersides belief. At that point you can sell any story on that topic to both sides.

Essentially hatred sells. This is also why Bush and his fundamentalist regime are so popular. They drive divisions and sow hatred among the citizens.
Title: Re: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 20, 2005, 07:30:13 am: Quote
Originally posted by .::Tin Can::.
Right, right?

Just because you act that way doesn't mean that the rest of us do. :p

*Bookmarks thread to point Tin Can at it later*
Title: Re: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 20, 2005, 07:48:17 am: Quote
Originally posted by .::Tin Can::.
Things seem to be flying by my head a lot lately, as well as other peoples; and it seems today, after watching more news in my Engineering Graphics Class, something hit me about how politics are discussed these days, as opposed to the past.

1) Anything seen by the person speaking is considered fact.
2) Anything seen by the person speaking that disagrees with them is disregarded.

3) Anything heard from someone else that disagrees with the speaker is a "liar" or "misinformed".
4) Anything heard from someone else that agrees with the speaker is considered "correct" and "well-educated".

5) Any news reports, stories, and statistics that disagree with the speaker are considered "false" and "biased".
6) Any news reports, stories, and statistics that agree with the speaker are considered "truth" and "factual".

7) Anything that is only rumored and cannot be confirmed that agrees with the speaker is still taken for fact, and is considered "most likely true".
8) Anything that is only rumored and cannot be confimed that disagrees with the speaker is considered "conspiracy" and "only a rumor".

9) Anything, overall, that agrees with what the speaker says is cited and taken into account in all their speeches and discussions.
10) Anything, overall, that disagrees with the speaker is disregarded and never included in any speeches or discussions, and is most likely ignored.

Right, right?

Not right.
Title: Re: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Descenterace on October 20, 2005, 08:29:14 am: Quote
Originally posted by .::Tin Can::.
Right, right?

Not right. Everyone knows the Ministry of Truth is always right and everything they say is truth.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: ToecrusherHammerjaw on October 20, 2005, 08:50:58 am: You know, this may be why some people here in the U.S. don't vote: because every politician is like Tin Can's description (though Bush is certainly taking it over the top). The people could be too disgusted with all of them to vote for any of them. Anyone ever heard "Land of Confusion" by Genesis? That song pretty much sums up what America is like right now. Just my opinion.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 20, 2005, 08:59:47 am: I though Jesus he knows me (http://www.mp3lyrics.org/g/genesis/jesus-he-knows-me/) was the more accurate song.

At least in terms of the current government................

:D

Spoiler:

You'd probably have to have seen the end of Bremner, Bird & Fortune on C4 last week to get that, granted.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: ToecrusherHammerjaw on October 20, 2005, 09:08:55 am: Good Gravy. You speak the truth. This song does sound a lot like our idiot president. I must now get this one, too.

I just know he has the hidden agenda of abolition of separation of church and state, and turning this place into a theocracy. If that ever happens, I'm starting the revolution. You are all welcome to join me. :D Don't get me wrong, I am religious, but only to a point. There has be a balance of secular humanism and Jesus to keep me sane one way or the other.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 20, 2005, 09:19:18 am: Jesus loves me this I know
For the Bible...
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: phreak on October 20, 2005, 09:48:30 am: alright, these should work :p

http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/sod/speakenglishordie.html#16
http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/corrosionofconformity/blind.html#7
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: LtNarol on October 20, 2005, 12:33:03 pm: I prefer to to think that everyone is a little misinformed, and thus that everyone is wrong.

Yay for apathy.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 20, 2005, 12:36:55 pm: Everyone knows that they do not know everything and thus they all are lying in a way. The question is who is lying because they are disregarding the truth and who is lying because they just don't have all the right sources.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 20, 2005, 12:51:02 pm: Or maybe some of us aren't lying but are mearly voicing an opinion based on as much fact as we can get on the matter at hand.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 20, 2005, 12:53:08 pm: No its still spouting untruth. The qualifier you are suggesting is how much we try to avoid spouting untruth. Speaking the truth is really a matter of how little untruth you spout.

It has nothing to do with the real truth.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 20, 2005, 01:00:41 pm: Being incorrect != lying. Lying implies malice.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 20, 2005, 01:06:47 pm: The lie is when you are trying to support your opinion.

Which I think almost all of us do.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 20, 2005, 01:22:47 pm: An opinion can't be a lie unless you believe it. The truth/untruth lies with your stated justification.

If I say I think the moon is made of cheese, then that's not a lie. If I say it's made of cheese becase they brought some back via Apollo, then it's a lie.

I've, personally, never lied to support any opinion I've expoused. I don't think there are many here who have (at least not intentionally).
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 20, 2005, 01:24:06 pm: Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
The lie is when you are trying to support your opinion.

Which I think almost all of us do.

By your own argument your last two posts (supporting your opinion) were lies.

Therefore I can completely ignore you since you've already stated that you must be lying :p

And I've never lied to support my opinions either. If they can't stand without me having to lie then they aren't worth holding.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 20, 2005, 01:34:32 pm: lol do you give opinions that you do not believe.

This is philosophical.

Lying is telling something that is not true suspecting it is not completely true.

Lying with malice is misrepresentation, fraud, or etc.

Lying to mislead someone to their determent is fraud.

You are correct that it needs intent. However, we all know we do not know everything and every valid study on every single thing.

As such, we all suspect there is falsehood or misleading conclusions in anything we say or write.

Believe me as a lawyer, we have so many cases to study and work into a valid precedent. There are always inconsistencies. As a good argument it downplays the inconsistencies or weakness in the argument. The other side does the same. Some lawyers go to far to misrepresentation to a court. (Osiri <---- slaps the guy next to him)

Neither has really lied. Both have lied.

It is a matter of perspective.

Further we have all played down a valid point or something of that sort.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 20, 2005, 01:38:52 pm: EDIT: ooops sorry for the double post.

Its not a morally wrong type lie I am refering to.

Further, I am absolutely lying.

I don't know you. I don't know of all the things you have ever done. You may not support your opinions and downplay any weakness in your argument.

I know you do to some extent aldo. I have been debating with you long enough to know.

You downplay weakness and emphasize for your side. This is too some extent a misrepresentation that you know you are committing.

This is fine and expected.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 20, 2005, 01:56:21 pm: [q]
You downplay weakness and emphasize for your side. This is too some extent a misrepresentation that you know you are committing.
[/q]

Does it not occur to you that what you regard as a weakness, is something that is simply of a lower priority in my opinion? Of course I'm going to emphasise for my own opinion; if I didn't emphasise with it, it wouldn't be my opinion. Likewise, what you perceive as a weakness, may be something that doesn't matter all that much to me, within the context of why I hold a particular opinion.

(Cite an example please, so I can be sure you're saying what I think you're saying here)

To be honest, you've not really debated with me on any subject that is especially close to my heart; so I'm not sure that you could make a fair judgement on my 'style' within this context. Look for, say, a thread on ID cards, the Iraq war, or evolution and that'd be a better example.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 20, 2005, 02:10:25 pm: Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
lol do you give opinions that you do not believe.

Nope I don't. I actually find it very hard to play devil's advocate as I see the flaws in my own arguments and trim them out as stupid.

Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
Believe me as a lawyer

Well that explains a lot. :p

Basically the answer I have for you is the same one I gave Tin Can. Just because you do it don't assume that everyone else does.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Flipside on October 20, 2005, 02:20:22 pm: I don't think the issue at hand here is whether or not people weigh arguments in their own favour, that is a given, and will never change. I consider a 'lie' to be anything said with conviction that is actually without conviction, we all do it.. 'You look nice tonight!', 'Wow, I'd have never have guessed you were any older than 40!' etc, little harmless lies that can actually be more helpful than the truth.

I suppose the first post is an example of the real problem 'I didn't win so the game must be fixed' is quite a frequent accusation I see made on these boards, fortunately though, most members realise that it isn't a game, and there is no winning or losing, we aren't making decision or having debates that will change the world, they very rarely even change the people who are having them, but that is the nature of the beast, as it were, but my own personal feeling is that the publics right to have an opinon may not make the world a better place, but I'm pretty sure it stops it from being a lot worse.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Janos on October 20, 2005, 03:04:20 pm: I just love logic and fallacies. Combined with idiotic internet toughguys they provide us all with our daily dose of laughter and joy.

Also it is possible to argue for something that is somehow logical yet we personally find it repulsive or immoral.

Also, relativism does not apply to facts. And it's paradoxal, kinda like science.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 20, 2005, 05:12:38 pm: Aldo,

I was not trying to insult you. I was merely pointing out that you have done what I am talking about. Let me explain.

If you back up an opinion with facts interpreted to your beliefs that is a weakness in an argument. When you declare that patent laws for CS hurts CS in general you are doing what I am saying. In debate a opinion is a weakness.

On the other hand, I did it too. I represent the facts as I see them as not harming the science if applied correctly. In many situations on that thread I didn't back up my statments and that made what I said opinion or forecasting.

We have differing opinions. We represented the facts skewed slightly to each of our sides. This is still a slight misrepresentation. You have no direct knowledge of what patent laws effect on computer science is. You however, see very bad possibilities. You state them almost, if not as fact. This is not wrong or lying it is slight misrepresentation.

There is nothing wrong with it.

As far as real debate you should not judge me by mine either. Half of that was me playing around. As far as ID cards, the Iraq war, or evolution, I am almost sure we would agree. Except on ID card I am not sure what issue you are talking about.

karajorma

First, it is highly misrepresentative to say that because I am a lawyer I lie. In fact, as a lawyer, I have more vested interest in only speaking the "truth" than in most other professions. We will get disbarred if we are caught making a material misrepresentation to a court.
If you are refering to the misunderstanding of lawyers that most people have that by representing a side repulsive to our own beliefs we are supporting that side, you need to meet a few lawyers. The reason we represent murders, criminals, and the civilly liable is that they deserve the same quality of representation regardless of thier guilt. If see a lawyer get an obviously guilty person acquited two things have happened. First, he has done his job. Second, the other side did not do their job in proving guilt. Popular opinions of guilt or innocence should not instantly convict someone. If we allowed representation of those who seem guilty to weaken, many innocent people would be convicted. The adversary system demands we do not lie but that we make the best case for our client.

Do not tell me that lawyers are liars, cheats, or thieves because that just shows your ignorance.

I assume that everyone makes arguments for thier sides because that is reality. A weakness in an arguement does not mean your argument is wrong. There are always weaknesses in arguments. If this were not true, there would be no need for debate, legislatures, or governments in general. If everything is clearly decidable because only one side has flaws or weaknesses, there would not be judges, lawyers, legislature, governemental agencies, executive branches, or even researchers. This is because those entities jobs are to sift through arguments and find the best one. Both sides inevitably have flaws or else it would not be up for decision as everyone would instantly see the validity of the arguement.

Playing devil's advocate does not mean there will instantly be flaws in your argument. Any time you assume that role there should be a valid argument on both sides or there is no point in being an advocate for it.

Quote
Originally posted by Janos
I just love logic and fallacies. Combined with idiotic internet toughguys they provide us all with our daily dose of laughter and joy.

Also it is possible to argue for something that is somehow logical yet we personally find it repulsive or immoral.

Also, relativism does not apply to facts. And it's paradoxal, kinda like science.

I hope you don't paint me as an internet tough guy. I have only been posting for like 7 days. This is for fun and relaxation.

It is very possible to argue for something that you find repulsive or immoral. I haved done it. As a advocate(no not lawyer), it is your job to further your client to the fullest extent of your abilities.

Flipside makes my point as far as everyone lies.

I take it one step further and say that everyone represents facts in a light best representative of thier cause.

Also I truly believe you are entitled to your opinion. I don't like it when someone tells me my opinion is wrong and does not give me hard cold facts to prove why. Telling me you have different opinion is one thing. Telling me directly that my assertion is wrong is another.

I may question someone elses opinion but I usually refrain from telling someone they can't have that opinion. However, if someone hands me opinions about why I am wrong I will argue that thier reasoning is wrong.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 20, 2005, 05:35:33 pm: Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
Aldo,

I was not trying to insult you. I was merely pointing out that you have done what I am talking about. Let me explain.

If you back up an opinion with facts interpreted to your beliefs that is a weakness in an argument. When you declare that patent laws for CS hurts CS in general you are doing what I am saying. In debate a opinion is a weakness.

On the other hand, I did it too. I represent the facts as I see them as not harming the science if applied correctly. In many situations on that thread I didn't back up my statments and that made what I said opinion or forecasting.

We have differing opinions. We represented the facts skewed slightly to each of our sides. This is still a slight misrepresentation. You have no direct knowledge of what patent laws effect on computer science is. You however, see very bad possibilities. You state them almost, if not as fact. This is not wrong or lying it is slight misrepresentation.

Well, I don't think it is misrepresentation, you see. I don't see how a possibility can be, any more than postulated advantage can be. When one thing exists and can be cited, and the other doesn't but can be reliably estimated, I don't think the latter should be ignored. If I cite such a possibility as fact, it's because I absolutely and positively believe it to be true and common sense; it is a fact of my opinion.

If we deconstruct what I (IIRC) said in that thread, it was roughly along the lines of 'patents restrict the ability to reuse and repeat, hence place restrictions on the evolution of technology arising through that reuse'. I don't think that basis is proveably false, especially not placed within the context I put it in (applying to lower level algorithms termed as building blocks or tools; I'll note that how low a level quantifies this can be a point of dispute). I simply postulated an effect with an observable and proven cause. Now, you may disagree with the effect - which is fine, because it is a postulation - but I don't think there is anything which can say which effect is or is not more 'true'.

Skew is a natural part of opinion, but it also is opinion. I've never changed my view of a possibility based upon opinion, but I've changed my opinion based on what I view to be a likely possibility, based on actual observation. i.e. upon the facts I observed and knew.

To me that's not misrepresentation or skew, that's just supporting an opinion. I have never, ever reinterpreted or skewed anything to support my opinion on a subject, because to do so would automatically invalidate that opinion.

Have I selected facts to support that? Of course - but only because to me they are key facts which are and have been of influence. I think I mentioned the ISNOT patent in that thread, for example. I didn't select that to back myself up, I selected that because I'd seen it before and it had influenced my position on the issue.

So, the point being, I don't think I misrepresented or skewed anything. I said my opinion, explained my basis for it, and argued why I disagreed with your position. What's dishonest about that?
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 20, 2005, 05:58:57 pm: Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
First, [SNIP]

First, dial down the rhetoric. You've made an assumption as to what I was saying it explained and you've got it all arse about face in your hurry to leap up and defend your profession from slights and insults that only exist in your head.

The fact is that a lawyer is someone who often accepts money to argue a point of view that may not be his own. That's not always the case but the fact is that unless you're the Perry Mason kind of lawyer who always accepts cases where he knows the client is 100% correct and the opposing side is 100% wrong the fact is that you can't get very far in the profession without doing that. In fact you even argue the point that it's fine to get someone off even if they are guilty and you know it because it was the other guy's job to stop you.

Now I'm not saying that is wrong but you're assuming that because you're like that everyone else must be. And that's where you're wrong.

I'm a scientist. I may work in IT now but the fact is that I was educated as a scientist and that will always be my mindset. A true scientist doesn't hold any view unless he can prove it with fact. If I can't prove it at least to myself I'll sit on the fence. If I have to make a choice between two equally well evidenced viewpoints I'll pick the choice that fits best with the rest of the world and use that until someone proves it wrong.

Since I'm pretty much sitting on the fence over the matter I'm not going to espouse either viewpoint as correct and I'll point out the flaws in any argument I make for it. I suggest you go back and actually read some threads on which Aldo and I have posted and you'll notice that we both do exactly that when we're discussing something. We'll also both say "I don't know" when we don't know and more often than not we'll actually try to find out the answer because we can't defend a point we're not certain about.

That's not the way a lawyer does things and most of the people you've been arguing with lean towards the science view which is why I said it explained everything when you revealed your background.

Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
Playing devil's advocate does not mean there will instantly be flaws in your argument. Any time you assume that role there should be a valid argument on both sides.

Wrong. The term devil's advocate denotes that you are espousing a point of view you do not hold. Now re-read what I wrote above. If for some reason I don't hold a view it's because I see the flaws in it. If I felt that there were valid arguments for that opinion I would not be playing devil's advocate. I would be sitting on the fence over the whole thing. If for some reason I were to enter such a discussion I'd point out the pros and cons of both/all the arguments in a bid to get to the truth.

Again for a lawyer it's easy to take a viewpoint that they don't agree with. You've been trained to do that. That's why the term isn't Devil's Chiropodist or Devil's Interior Decorator.

Don't make the assumption that because you do it everyone else does. For a scientific mindset, arguing a point for which you can see flaws is anathema.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 20, 2005, 06:10:50 pm: representing an opinion as fact.

QUOTE
By your standards, 90% of the work that I did for my degree should havce been already under patent. Bye-bye Computer Science departments, then. (opinion and may I say a wrong one)

A misrepresentation of my opinion skewed to an extreme that you had no reasonable expectation that was true. I rest my case.

Ok ok, so I don't feel like searching. My point is that just that little smart remark there is part of an argument with a misrepresentation.

Further, stating opinion as fact just because you believe it is absolutely true is not a valid defense. If this were so no one would criticize religious fundamentalists. We would just listen to them about how evolution could not be true and how Iraq needed to be blown to hell.

These are convictions that they firmly hold. They state them as cold fact. In fact they are trying to have children taught creationism now. They say this is because evolution is wrong and it has no basis. They know here is a basis but there opinion is that it does not because thier absolute belief says so.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: mikhael on October 20, 2005, 06:33:15 pm: Quote
Originally posted by karajorma
For a scientific mindset, arguing a point for which you can see flaws is anathema.
Actually, its one of the best ways to illustrate those flaws to someone else.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 20, 2005, 06:43:37 pm: Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
representing an opinion as fact.

QUOTE
By your standards, 90% of the work that I did for my degree should havce been already under patent. Bye-bye Computer Science departments, then. (opinion and may I say a wrong one)

A misrepresentation of my opinion skewed to an extreme that you had no reasonable expectation that was true. I rest my case.

Ok ok, so I don't feel like searching. My point is that just that little smart remark there is part of an argument with a misrepresentation.

Further, stating opinion as fact just because you believe it is absolutely true is not a valid defense. If this were so no one would criticize religious fundamentalists. We would just listen to them about how evolution could not be true and how Iraq needed to be blown to hell.

These are convictions that they firmly hold. They state them as cold fact. In fact they are trying to have children taught creationism now. They say this is because evolution is wrong and it has no basis. They know here is a basis but there opinion is that it does not because thier absolute belief says so.

I believe that is a factually correct assertion.

I'll explain why;
1) you stated that an algorithm the level of a bubble sort should be patentable (your standard). That would surely allow retrospective patents to be taken out on similar level standards, excluding the prospect of a future where we have the same situation of 'tool' level algorithms with patents taken out at the time. Perhaps where we have the unpatented bubble sort algorithm being taught whilst it is deprecated by a far superior algorithm used through business, because of patent issues.

2) I stated 90% of my work at university was performed at that algorithmic level. That is about as accurate as I can be with a rough guess; I'd say 100% but for the maths components in my degree. Either way, the 90% value can be taken as an indicator this type of work was an essential and vital component.

3) I then said, I could not be taught that. I'm not a lawyer, but I think it's a fair presumption that 'unauthorized making, using, offering for sale or selling any patented invention' (my emphasis) would apply to the writing of a patented algorithm in code, let alone the composition of it as part of a larger program. With a base level algorithm, I can't see how you could write it without breaking a patent; after all, an algorithm is simply "A procedure for accomplishing a given result by proceeding on a logical step-by-step basis".

4) By implication of that (plus the substantial damage done to any form of original reseach), I derived that Computer Science departments would be grossly damaged. I think that would be true for a CS department if it were unable to teach basic algorithms for legal reasons, and even more so if it was unable to maintain research groups due to the same.

That is not a misrepresentation. You said bubble sort level of algorithm should be covered by patent. (You didn't object to the allowance of nonsense patents on the grounds they could be challenged, IIRC, too). If I misrepresented you, I can only imagine it was because at some point you objected to retrospective patenting (AFAIK you didn't, but maybe I missed a bit; big thread).

Perhaps it's a bit of a strawman, but you set it up by saying bubble level should be patentable. i'm not ashamed of taking that to what I feel is a fairly logical conclusion, and I sure as hell didn't have to make stuff up to do so.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 20, 2005, 06:45:18 pm: never said bubble sort algorithm. I said that was too simple an example and bubble sort had existed way too long and was already part of the science.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 20, 2005, 06:55:12 pm: [q]Because every thing in the world is a mathmatical algorithm. Lawyers have a rule that someone should not be able to use someone elses brilliance to do thier own job.(this is the work product doctrine to all you law types) Physics is mathmatical truths. Chemists work with mathmatical formulas. Computer hardware works with mathmatical truths. They are all simply the practical use of it. No formula like E=MC2 should not be patentable. But if it were brand new, a bubble sort should be able to be patented. Just because you can express it as mathmatics does not mean it is not an invention..[/q]
(10-17-2005 12:05 AM - GMT, naturally)

The quote of mine you posted, occured after that.
[q]Would I make the bubble sort, or equivalent, routine free for wide use?

Absolutely, positively, unequivocally yes.

You're viewing it from the point of view of business; defend investment, prevent advancement (i.e. stop companies eroding an advantage), and soforth. I'm viewing from the point of science, which is what it really is; would you restrict the advancement of the theory of relativity to one person, the single patentholder?

By your standards, 90% of the work that I did for my degree should havce been already under patent. Bye-bye Computer Science departments, then.

Can't you see that holding the state of the art for 10-20 years represents a complete halt in progress?

You've pointed out the problems in your previous code - if all the current tools of computer software were patented at creation, we wouldn't be able to type this. We'd probably be sitting at CGA screens that cost £1000 each, if atall. An algorithm is exactly one such tool; a series of steps, to solve a problem. If you include that as patentable, you must add the likes of the Observer pattern.

Also, you pointed out large companies use a scattergun approach - that's because the validation has failed so many times in evaluating nonsense patents that it is a no risk operation for them.
[/q] (smaller for digestion)
(10-17-2005 09:38 AM)

(It's probably also useful for putting that single line quote within context)

EDIT; hmm, that was odd. Posted the wrong quote. Apols.
EDIT2; ok, possibly a misreprentation of your view. Albeit made in the context of you saying you were a patent lawyer, IIRC, and also concentrating on the business value. So I don't think it's unfair in that case. The 'science'quote... possibly could have had an IMO, although to be honest I'd say that is a fact; the business is in the application, same as you can have businesses building products using physics theories without physics becoming a business.

It was only later - about 8 hours later - you posted
[q]What I meant was... the basic principles of something as simple as bubble sort is unpatentable. The use of 50 different algorithms in a new and novel combination is going to be patentable. [/q]
(10-17-2005 05:08 PM)

Not that I want to nitpick, of course. But it's nice to keep facts within their context. I'm sure you understand.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 20, 2005, 07:02:29 pm: Quote
Originally posted by mikhael
Actually, its one of the best ways to illustrate those flaws to someone else.

Not if you're arguing for it in the same way a lawyer would, taking efforts to ignore the flaws and gloss them over as much as you can.

That's what a devil's advocate is supposed to do and it's not something I do well or enjoy because I find myself digging a deeper and deeper hole trying to find explainations that don't exist for the flaws.

Which is pretty much the point I was trying to make (and possibly yours too).
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Flipside on October 20, 2005, 07:23:37 pm: I think part of the problem here is the strength of the word 'lie', it's like the misuse of the word 'Excuse' these days, as though it means an attempt to wriggle out of trouble rather than justification for your actions.

Osiris is right if you consider there to be no 'real' truth, that no single person could possibly be in possession of enough facts to state 'The Truth' without question.

To use the Lawyer analogy, a prosecution lawyer would say, 'On the night of Feb 25th you Murdered Mr X', the Defence would say, 'On the night of Feb 25th, you met Mr X, who had been looking down your girlfriends top all night, had then proceeded to argue with him, he threatened your gilrfriend and the next thing you knew, he was dead and you had your hands around his neck.'

Both are the 'truth', both are 'lies', depending on your side of the fence. Both play on human emotion in a particular way, The first is cold, factual, appeals to the demand to right wrongs, to see order. The second is human, it has a story, and we all like stories to have happy endings, we can empathise more.

We can state what we truly, in the core of our beings believe to be the truth, and there is nothing whatsoever wrong in doing that, but is it the truth, or simply what every instinct in your body tells you is the truth, and, at the end of the day, does it matter which it is?
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: mikhael on October 20, 2005, 07:35:27 pm: Quote
Originally posted by karajorma

Not if you're arguing for it in the same way a lawyer would, taking efforts to ignore the flaws and gloss them over as much as you can.

That's what a devil's advocate is supposed to do and it's not something I do well or enjoy because I find myself digging a deeper and deeper hole trying to find explainations that don't exist for the flaws.

Which is pretty much the point I was trying to make (and possibly yours too).

Oh no, I was saying its a good method for revealing flaws. However, when it comes to playing devil's advocate, I'm great at that. I don't arguing for a subject in which I don't believe or find totally bollocks, if I'm having fun doing it.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 20, 2005, 08:52:22 pm: Yes lets keep things in context aldo. I like how you disregarded some facts in your last post and made my point for me. You just dug yourself a hole.

Upon further review you still misstated me even though I did make the mistake of not qualifying the bubble sort statment long before you made that statment. There were many posts in between. Good try on lawyering. If I were lazy I would have missed your misrepresentation entirely.

You said that 90% of your university work would have been patent infringment. That was a clear misrepresentation. Let me explain.

I said when bubble sort was new. That was probably more than 100 years ago and long before computers were electronic. That patent would have long expired (they are finite you know). As such none of your basic algorithmic work would have been barred by patent. Especially not 90%.

FURTHER YOU ARE COMPLETELY FALSIFYING THE EVIDENCE SINCE THIS WAS IN THE POST DIRECTLY BEFORE YOURS(YA IM YELLING CAUSE I'M LAUGHING)
I DID THESE IN REVERSE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER FROM YOUR POST. (ie these were directly before your post with the one right before yours first and then going to the older ones.)

QUOTE
_____________________________________________
As a final edit that I wanted separate from my prior responses...
. . .
In software. I cannot patent the basic idea of a hash sort or a bubble sort. But if I figured out a way to make a new sort using both hash and bubble sort I could patent it.
_____________________________________________________
AND DIRECTLY BEFORE THAT AND HERE IS THE KILLER OF YOUR JUSTIFICATION

QUOTE
_______________________________
I was not really saying something as simple as bubble sort should be patentable ever. It was completely obvious as a process before computers were invented.
_________________________________
AND BEFORE THAT

QUOTE
_______________

If you invented this ****brilliant new type of sorting algorithm**** that was different from anything ever done before, would you want a big company to be able to use it freely whenever they wanted. Essentially you get nothing for your work.
________________________

There were more than three times I corrected myself before your statement.

So don't cry that your 90% argument was based on a sound representation of my statments.

It was a skewed misrepresentation. As such I do stand by my prior post. YOU HAD NO REASON TO THINK THAT WAS WHAT MY STANDARDS REALLY WERE.

I didn't read much more of your post yet.
EDIT: WOOPS I GUESS I WAS TOO HARD ON YOU BECAUSE I WAS WORKING ON THAT POST FOR A WHILE(I HAD TO GO TO THE GROCERY AND DO STUFF WITH FIANCE)
SORRY FOR BEING TOO HARSH. HOWEVER YOU STILL DIDN'T REALLY ADMIT ANYTHING. YOU ARE STILL TRYING TO SUGGEST THAT YOU ARE INNOCENT OF MISREPRESENTATION.

I also admitted that I do sometimes state opinion as if it were nearly fact. I admitted to this practice. You and Karajorma are the two who claimed to be innocent of any slight misrepresentation.

I also skew argument to my advantage. I do not directly out right lie.

Plus I am going to just say that Flipside is correct in understanding my point. Both sides are misrepresenting the facts.

One side is suggesting it was a horrible murder. Deliberate homicide

The other side is saying it was simply temporary insanity.

It was actually in reality probably a mix.
Likely it was heat of passion homicide. This is when you lose it but do not go completely insane. (a very simplified definition so please don't go look it up)

OSIRI <----- goes off extremely satisfied.

MAJOR EDIT:

Aldo and Kara:

Guys this is getting WAAAY too personal. I can't believe this. Why are we getting like this. Kara, why did you go and insult me personally. You suggested that I am a lawyer and as such a liar.

Aldo, when you disagree with me don't tell me I am wrong unless I truely say something factually wrong. Aldo you have to admit you got extremely sarcastic and over the top when you wrote what this was in response to.

Guys, I want to have fun and debate but not get personal. I don't like getting like this because it is how I am at work. Well actually I am more respectful at work and I am sure you both are too.

I will say that this post shows that I am getting personal. I have let the aggressive arguing get too much. I want to back it off and just express ourselves and not essentially tell the other they are wrong.

I am guilty as you of going to far.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 20, 2005, 08:58:07 pm: I am trying to find a turrent sign for statement and their for myself.

(EDIT: Okay that sentence doesn't make sense by itself. I keep misspelling a few words... Statment and thier are the ones the sentence is about.)

The horror that is autocorrect has destroyed my spelling.

Sorry for harming anyones psyche by my horrible misspellings.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Flipside on October 20, 2005, 09:21:23 pm: < Looks at thread title >

You know, sometimes you just gotta sit back and giggle :drevil:

:warp:
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 20, 2005, 09:27:21 pm: I know. That is pretty hilarious.

Okay, I'll admit it now. I am a little confused why you are sitting back to giggle. We are still mostly on track.

Things got some what off track when I said that everybody misrepresents.

At that point it became a chore of proving it.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: WMCoolmon on October 20, 2005, 11:09:17 pm: I just scrolled through the thread:

Quote
Yes lets keep things in context aldo. I like how you disregarded some facts in your last post and made my point for me. You just dug yourself a hole.

Actually I like this kind of thing. It's just an attempt at psychological warfare, or an attempt to gather one's thoughts. There are no facts.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 21, 2005, 04:51:55 am: Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
Yes lets keep things in context aldo. I like how you disregarded some facts in your last post and made my point for me. You just dug yourself a hole.

Upon further review you still misstated me even though I did make the mistake of not qualifying the bubble sort statment long before you made that statment. There were many posts in between. Good try on lawyering. If I were lazy I would have missed your misrepresentation entirely.

You said that 90% of your university work would have been patent infringment. That was a clear misrepresentation. Let me explain.

I said when bubble sort was new. That was probably more than 100 years ago and long before computers were electronic. That patent would have long expired (they are finite you know). As such none of your basic algorithmic work would have been barred by patent. Especially not 90%.

FURTHER YOU ARE COMPLETELY FALSIFYING THE EVIDENCE SINCE THIS WAS IN THE POST DIRECTLY BEFORE YOURS(YA IM YELLING CAUSE I'M LAUGHING)
I DID THESE IN REVERSE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER FROM YOUR POST. (ie these were directly before your post with the one right before yours first and then going to the older ones.)

QUOTE
_____________________________________________
As a final edit that I wanted separate from my prior responses...
. . .
In software. I cannot patent the basic idea of a hash sort or a bubble sort. But if I figured out a way to make a new sort using both hash and bubble sort I could patent it.

_____________________________________________________
AND DIRECTLY BEFORE THAT AND HERE IS THE KILLER OF YOUR JUSTIFICATION

QUOTE
_______________________________
I was not really saying something as simple as bubble sort should be patentable ever. It was completely obvious as a process before computers were invented.
_________________________________
AND BEFORE THAT

QUOTE
_______________

If you invented this ****brilliant new type of sorting algorithm**** that was different from anything ever done before, would you want a big company to be able to use it freely whenever they wanted. Essentially you get nothing for your work.
________________________

There were more than three times I corrected myself before your statement.

So don't cry that your 90% argument was based on a sound representation of my statments.

It was a skewed misrepresentation. As such I do stand by my prior post. YOU HAD NO REASON TO THINK THAT WAS WHAT MY STANDARDS REALLY WERE.

I didn't read much more of your post yet.
EDIT: WOOPS I GUESS I WAS TOO HARD ON YOU BECAUSE I WAS WORKING ON THAT POST FOR A WHILE(I HAD TO GO TO THE GROCERY AND DO STUFF WITH FIANCE)
SORRY FOR BEING TOO HARSH. HOWEVER YOU STILL DIDN'T REALLY ADMIT ANYTHING. YOU ARE STILL TRYING TO SUGGEST THAT YOU ARE INNOCENT OF MISREPRESENTATION.

I also admitted that I do sometimes state opinion as if it were nearly fact. I admitted to this practice. You and Karajorma are the two who claimed to be innocent of any slight misrepresentation.

I also skew argument to my advantage. I do not directly out right lie.

Plus I am going to just say that Flipside is correct in understanding my point. Both sides are misrepresenting the facts.

One side is suggesting it was a horrible murder. Deliberate homicide

The other side is saying it was simply temporary insanity.

It was actually in reality probably a mix.
Likely it was heat of passion homicide. This is when you lose it but do not go completely insane. (a very simplified definition so please don't go look it up)

OSIRI <----- goes off extremely satisfied.

MAJOR EDIT:

Aldo and Kara:

Guys this is getting WAAAY too personal. I can't believe this. Why are we getting like this. Kara, why did you go and insult me personally. You suggested that I am a lawyer and as such a liar.

Aldo, when you disagree with me don't tell me I am wrong unless I truely say something factually wrong. Aldo you have to admit you got extremely sarcastic and over the top when you wrote what this was in response to.

Guys, I want to have fun and debate but not get personal. I don't like getting like this because it is how I am at work. Well actually I am more respectful at work and I am sure you both are too.

I will say that this post shows that I am getting personal. I have let the aggressive arguing get too much. I want to back it off and just express ourselves and not essentially tell the other they are wrong.

I am guilty as you of going to far.

The post I was referring to was quoted in my own post. Your later posts did not say anything that indicated anything at that algorithmic level should be unpatentable. You cited the bubble sort as a level of complexity.

You'll notice I said 'bubble sort, or equivalent' in the first line of my post. For all you posted, you never once said that level of algorithm should be unpatentable. Did you really think I was suggesting 90% of my university work was writing bubble sorts?

In fact, if you read my posts in the specified thread, they all referenced bubble sort within that context, as a complexity benchmark set by you. Yes, you may have said it can't be patented as prior art or obviousness; but you didn't exclude that basic level.

For example[q]Saying I am going to patent a combustion engine is alot like saying I am going to patent a sort algorithm.

You know I don't mean all combustion engines. What I mean is one specific engine or improvement on all engines. For example, Dodge might want to patent the new improved Hemi but that would not prevent all Hemi engines from being produced. Just ones using the improvement.

In software. I cannot patent the basic idea of a hash sort or a bubble sort. But if I figured out a way to make a new sort using both hash and bubble sort I could patent it. [/q]

That's what I meant. The algorithmic level. i'm sorry you missed that, but my point - consistently - was within that level. I should have quantified it a bit better, perhaps - namely by stating a) the fear of ISNOT style retrospective patenting and b)that it'd bar new low 'level' algorithms from future teaching - but I would still say it was perfectly valid and honest.

Anyways, why the hell would I want to misrepresent you? What's the benefit in that to, well, to me? Misunderstand, perhaps. Misread, maybe. But intentionally so?
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 21, 2005, 06:29:25 am: Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
Guys this is getting WAAAY too personal. I can't believe this. Why are we getting like this. Kara, why did you go and insult me personally. You suggested that I am a lawyer and as such a liar.

I suggested nothing of the sort. I explained exactly what I meant immediately upon you stating that the first time. And now instead of presenting a proper rebuttle of that you're going back to the original post (Which you misinterpretted) and using that a second time to claim I said that because you're a lawyer you must be lying.

You were the one who claimed that you (along with everyone else) lies when debating. Don't turn around and try to claim that it is a personal attack when I say that just because you admit to lying doesn't mean that everyone does it.

You've already admitted to lying. You have no cause to claim it as an insult seeing as you've admitted you're a liar. I however do have cause to claim insult as I am not a liar and I take exception to you calling myself and everyone else in the world one just because you believe you can't argue without doing it.

It seems funny to me that your only defence when I pointed out why your argument is wrong is to basically ignore my post clarifying the matter and basically "lie" about how I was insulting you even though you were fully aware that I wasn't doing anything of the sort.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 21, 2005, 07:49:02 am: Quote
Originally posted by Flipside
Osiris is right if you consider there to be no 'real' truth, that no single person could possibly be in possession of enough facts to state 'The Truth' without question.

If all he was stating is that you can't ever know the truth I'd have agreed.

Instead he claims that everyone deliberately misrepresents their own picture of the truth in order to make their own opinion appear correct and that I do take exception to. The fact that you can't ever know the real truth is completely irrelevant to that opinion.

Osiri is claiming that in your head you hold all the evidence that you know (Your version of the truth) and in any debate you only mention the evidence that supports your view of the matter.

I happen to take exception to that view and I especially don't like being told that is how I act.

Quote
Originally posted by Flipside
To use the Lawyer analogy, a prosecution lawyer would say, 'On the night of Feb 25th you Murdered Mr X', the Defence would say, 'On the night of Feb 25th, you met Mr X, who had been looking down your girlfriends top all night, had then proceeded to argue with him, he threatened your gilrfriend and the next thing you knew, he was dead and you had your hands around his neck.'

Both are the 'truth', both are 'lies', depending on your side of the fence. Both play on human emotion in a particular way, The first is cold, factual, appeals to the demand to right wrongs, to see order. The second is human, it has a story, and we all like stories to have happy endings, we can empathise more.

Now while that may be the case in a court of law (where you are dealing with a person's emotions) it doesn't have any place in most discussions.

Let me give you an alternate scientist analogy to compare against your lawyer one.

When two scientists who support opposing theories write papers on a subject they present all the data they've collected and point to why they believe that the data supports their particular hypothesis. Even though both draw different conclusions neither alters the basic data which may often contain trends which support the other scientists hypothesis. As long as the majority of the data supports their hypothesis and they can explain away the other data both are being honest.

If I am debating climate change or patent law my argument should be like the scientific one. Emotions are not involved in either subject only cold hard fact. If I'm talking about what bands are good or why a game isn't or why I feel that Timmy Mallet is a wanker that's another matter but there is no need to lie in a debate which is based on logic. You're not supposed to be presenting an emotional argument. If you have to lie to present your argument it actually points to the fact that you probably don't understand the subject well enough to be talking about it.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 21, 2005, 08:04:01 am: Aldo again you misrepresent me.

YOUR post is the one that suggested I believed bubble sort to be patentable. The quote of mine did not say so. You are now citing the first line of YOUR OWN QUESTIONED post to prove yourself correct. YOU ARE STILL DISREGARDING THE INTERMEDIATE POSTS. I MEAN SHOULD I POST ALL OF THEM IN FULL TEXT TO SHOW YOU OR WOULD YOU JUST ADMIT IT.

Anyway note the first line of your post. NOT MINE. A COMBINATION OF BUBBLE SORT AND A PARTICULAR IMPLEMENTATON OF HASH SORT THAT WAS NEW NONNOVEL ETC MIGHT YES MIGHT BE PATENTABLE.

You still did not represent me correctly regardless of what my intermediate messages said. JUST ADMIT IT.

You said your university work would have been patented. This completely disregarded the fact that patents are finite and would have long expired even if I did think the == operator was patentable.

Those tools ==, bubble, all would be expired patents.

Quote
Originally posted by aldo_14

Would I make the bubble sort, or equivalent, routine free for wide use?

Absolutely, positively, unequivocally yes.

You're viewing it from the point of view of business; defend investment, prevent advancement (i.e. stop companies eroding an advantage), and soforth. I'm viewing from the point of science, which is what it really is; would you restrict the advancement of the theory of relativity to one person, the single patentholder?

By your standards, 90% of the work that I did for my degree should havce been already under patent. Bye-bye Computer Science departments, then.

Can't you see that holding the state of the art for 10-20 years represents a complete halt in progress?

You've pointed out the problems in your previous code - if all the current tools of computer software were patented at creation, we wouldn't be able to type this. We'd probably be sitting at CGA screens that cost £1000 each, if atall. An algorithm is exactly one such tool; a series of steps, to solve a problem. If you include that as patentable, you must add the likes of the Observer pattern.

Also, you pointed out large companies use a scattergun approach - that's because the validation has failed so many times in evaluating nonsense patents that it is a no risk operation for them.

This is the ISNOT patent; http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220040230959%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20040230959&RS=DN/20040230959

Abstract; A system, method and computer-readable medium support the use of a single operator that allows a comparison of two variables to determine if the two variables point to the same location in memory.

That abstract alone should point out this is not just prior art, it's an attempt to patent mathematics.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 21, 2005, 08:22:09 am: Kara

sirst that was an edit. I hadn't gotten to you yet. Thank you for misrepresenting that edit as an admission that I didn't have a proper rebuttal aimed at you. It was only in regard to how we are letting emotions get in the way. You misrepresented it as an admission and proved my point....

WE ALL DO IT FROM TIME TO TIME.

Further you misrepresent me admitting that I have lied in the past to mean that I am a complete liar and I should have no problem with this label.

Kara, if you are going to post saying you don't misrepresent....

DON'T DO IT IN THE POST YOU ARE SAYING IT IN.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 21, 2005, 09:43:14 am: Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
sirst that was an edit. I hadn't gotten to you yet.

You posted that 10 hours before my reply, fail to mention my post completely and expect me to know that? I'm not telepathic you know. You get judged on what you write and not what is going on in your head.

The facts are blatently clear. I post something. You take it as an attack. I explain it's not an attack. You ignore my answer and continue to take it as an attack even though you now have evidence proving that it wasn't one. :wtf:

Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
Thank you for misrepresenting that edit as an admission that I didn't have a proper rebuttal aimed at you. It was only in regard to how we are letting emotions get in the way. You misrepresented it as an admission and proved my point....

I proved nothing of the sort. I turn up 8 hours after you've posted when you've neither posted a rebuttle nor posted to say that you'll be adding one later. That's not a misrepresentation. You had time at least to post that much. You chose not to.

You're the one shouting and acting as though you're the victim of a heinous attempt to insult you. You restated that claim in your edited post even after I had posted explaining what was going on.
I'm not misrepresenting you at all. In fact it is the other way around. You're claiming that I'm getting emotional and insulting you when I have done nothing of the sort. If you can prove that my intention was to insult you feel free to do so. Seeing as how

a) I doubt you're telepathic either
b) I wasn't trying to insult you

I doubt you'll find it easy.

Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
Further you misrepresent me admitting that I have lied in the past to mean that I am a complete liar and I should have no problem with this label.

I'm not misrepresenting you in the slightest. You've basically said that if we have differing opinions you will lie by ommitting anything you know to be true in order to support those opinions.

I never said you were a complete liar. Only that by your own admission your posts on any subject couldn't even be taken as being justified by all the evidence you know and was therefore suspect.

When a witness is caught lying in a trial it doesn't mean that every word he says is false but it does mean that any evidence he gave must be treated with distrust. You chose to reveal you were lying so pardon me if I choose to wish to verify everything you say independantly. You've got no one to blame for your damaged credibility but yourself. Temper tantrums like in your previous post to Aldo do nothing to further that credibility and you'd be advised to avoid them if you want to continue this discussion with me.

Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
Kara, if you are going to post saying you don't misrepresent....

DON'T DO IT IN THE POST YOU ARE SAYING IT IN.

I suggest you re-read my posts on this subject before you continue with such comments. You are wrong. I have not misrepresented you. At worst I have misunderstood you (and I can't even find any cases of that). I have certainly not chosen to post your opinion on any matter as being different from what I understood it to be from your posts.

You on the other hand have chosen to ignore a post from me saying that I didn't insult all lawyers (A stupid thing to do seeing as I have relatives who are lawyers!) and reiterated that I have insulted them even though you know this not to be true.

You are the one doing the misrepresentation and now you are using every lawyers trick in the book to try to make it look like you are the victim. Stop it. I'm not going to fall for it and I doubt that anyone else interested in this topic is either.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 21, 2005, 09:45:47 am: Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
Aldo again you misrepresent me.

YOUR post is the one that suggested I believed bubble sort to be patentable. The quote of mine did not say so. You are now citing the first line of YOUR OWN QUESTIONED post to prove yourself correct. YOU ARE STILL DISREGARDING THE INTERMEDIATE POSTS. I MEAN SHOULD I POST ALL OF THEM IN FULL TEXT TO SHOW YOU OR WOULD YOU JUST ADMIT IT.

Anyway note the first line of your post. NOT MINE. A COMBINATION OF BUBBLE SORT AND A PARTICULAR IMPLEMENTATON OF HASH SORT THAT WAS NEW NONNOVEL ETC MIGHT YES MIGHT BE PATENTABLE.

You still did not represent me correctly regardless of what my intermediate messages said. JUST ADMIT IT.

You said your university work would have been patented. This completely disregarded the fact that patents are finite and would have long expired even if I did think the == operator was patentable.

Those tools ==, bubble, all would be expired patents.

Just a short reply cos I'm at work;
I have given you my honest view of your statements, as I read them and why i objected to them. As part of that, I've highlighted the specific parts which caused that particular opinion, and the context I was speaking within.

I think I was pretty clear in my previous post why you may have misconstrued my meaning, but I'll restate my objection; that patents could be applied retrospectively (as evidenced by existing applications; including the granted amazon e-business patent, and ISNOT, both which have been filed despite the obviousness and prior art), and also that this would apply to future developments at the same complexity and algorithmic level.

I'm not sure I can restate that any clearer than already.

If you don't like that view, or think it my reading of your posts is mistaken, then fair enough - I'm only human. But I did not lie as to my interpretation of that. I gave an honest derivation of what I thought you had asked for / believed within.

Your implication is that I essentially read your posts, disregarded them, and made **** up. That's complete rubbish, and I regard it as an insulting insinuation without any basis, whether made in caps or no caps.

I'm the one posting my honest traing of reasoning here, after all. Have you? I seem to remember you citing a lot of 'example' in that particular thread before backtracking and declaring them irrelevant. Can you explain why you cited bubble sort in the first place if it was a completely irrelevant analogy? How can I misrepresent you, if you're misrepresenting yourself through that sort of contradiction?

It's not as if I didn't quote the exact post I was replying to in my own post, after all.

If you want to quote all those 3 posts in totality, fire away. But I don't think you'll be able to read my mind as to what I read as their meaning and content. Certainly I'm not sure how you could contradict my stated reasoning.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 21, 2005, 10:45:34 am: Quote:
Kara
_______________________________
I'm not misrepresenting you in the slightest. You've basically said that if we have differing opinions you will lie by ommitting
anything you know to be true in order to support those opinions.
_______________________________

I have said nothing of this sort. I said that I would not omit anything I knew. I said I would downplay the weaknesses and emphasize the strengths. You are completely misrepresenting my statement in an extreme way. Find any post I said *I* would completely omit the truth.

Further the point is you are representing my standards as something you know they are not.

YOU ABSOLUTELY KNEW THAT I WAS NOT REPRESENTING MYSELF AS A OUTRIGHT LIAR YET THIS IS WHAT YOU SAY MY STANDARDS ARE ACCORDING TO ME.

That was the misrepresentation I said you had committed. You have and you can't say you haven't. Tell me that you truly believed that I was saying that I was an absolute liar.

_______________________________________________

Aldo, you have finally got my point but you are still arguing it.
You are presenting the facts as YOU see them as you want to read them. You did not take notice of the 3 times I corrected myself. You just saw the post that SUPPORTED your argument and disregarded reading the other ones.

I clearly stated before your post that I didn't mean literally that bubble sort itself would be patentable.

Further, it is irrelevant exactly what your stance on patents was.

My point is that your statements were a misrepresentation of my standards. Regardless of anything you knew my standards were not that 90% of the algorithms in CS should CURRENTLY be patented. As such you misrepresented me as a part of your argument which is exactly what you are trying to say you did not do.

If you really believed that a Computer Scientist believed that 90% of my own work should have been illegal can I have what your on.

Remember I too have a CS degree.

Anyway you guys have both misrepresented me. This was done by taking what your THOUGHT I was saying and exaggerating it to an extreme.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 21, 2005, 11:26:56 am: No it was taken from exactly what you were saying.

If you downplay the weaknesses of an argument you are omitting all the evidence in support of it. Especially when it comes to a logical argument rather than one based on emotion. If you gave equal weight to evidence that supported an opposing point of view you wouldn't be downplaying it now would you?

I'll further point out that I mentioned the fact in my post that you weren't an outright liar.

Quote
Originally posted by karajorma
I never said you were a complete liar.

You really need to actually read my posts before replying to them. Yet again you've repeated an assertion that I had demonstrated to be false in my previous posting. For all you're complaining at Aldo for doing it is in fact you who did it.

I'll reiterate because you either didn't grasp it the first time or completely ignored it.
Once you have tarnished your crediblilty by admitting you are a liar it matters not the degree to which you said you lie. You've already stated that you play down the weaknesses in your own argument so how could I possibly know that you aren't playing down the amount you lie?

And now you persist in this fantasy that I

1) Said all lawyers are liars
2) Said that you are a complete liar
3) Did all that deliberately to misrepresent you and win the argument.

despite the fact that I have explained on numerous occasions that none of those are true.

You're claiming that you don't omit things that are true if they will damage your argument yet instead of apologising for saying that I called all laywers liars you've completely glossed over the fact and gone on to a new argument about how I misrepresented you about something else.
Why have you done that? It was important enough for you to rant about it before. Why have you completely ignored it after I've restated my case a second time and proved it wrong?

To me it appears that you are perfectly happy to commit a lie of ommission in order to win an argument. Maybe it's just that you lack the time to answer but you do seem to have lots of time to continue the argument on other parts of the topic. I would suggest that you address that issue before you continue claiming to me that I've misrepresented you.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 21, 2005, 11:36:05 am: Kara

I give up. You refuse to see the contradiction of your first paragraph.

There is a difference between omitting all known negative evidence and downplaying but still presenting all known evidence.

The former is outright fraudulent misrepresentation to a court. This would get me disbarred and IS outright lying.

The latter is mere debate. The other side will emphasize the other evidence and will downplay mine.

The latter is exactly what you are doing. As such you and aldo are misrepresenting by not giving full weight to weakness as well.

I also will do this in any argument. I will not change facts or leave them out as this would be fraud.

You on the other hand are reading what you wish from my statements.

TO RESTATE MY WHOLE POINT:

If in a argument, you do not fully give 100% validity and attention to all negative evidence, you are still misrepresenting the weight of the argument. You do this because the other sides job is to give emphasis to your negatives.

You repeatedly do this an then claim you would never.

I am not saying you are an outright liar. I am not saying you are morally culpable for debating.

The simple point is you do not unfailingly represent a negative for as much as it is.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 21, 2005, 11:58:51 am: Let me get this straight. Taking the example of the court case Flipside posted. Are you telling me that as a defence lawyer if the defendant had said to all the his friends that he was going to kill that guy shortly before the incident you'd put the friends on the stand and make them say that even if the prosecution didn't know it?

Cause that is quite clearly a lie of omission even though I'm sure that most lawyers would do it.

And yet again you've ignored the whole all lawyers are liars argument a second time even though I told you that you should address that first or I would consider it a lie of omission. You've basically proved my whole point a second time even if the analogy above doesn't already do that.

The simple fact is that I'm not reading what I wish from your statements. I'm reading what you wrote. There is a difference between misunderstanding and misrepresenting that you have continually ignored despite the fact that myself and Aldo have stated it several times.

That leaves two possibilities.

1) You are incapable of grasping the difference
2) You don't wish to acknowledge the possibility that I'm not deliberately misrepresenting you but am instead misunderstanding you.

1) Means that you are a moron.
2) Means that you are committing yet another lie of omission by refusing to acknowledge the fact that malice might not be involved here but instead choose to argue that it was deliberate in order to win.

Make your choice or feel free to point out another alternative.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 21, 2005, 12:32:52 pm: Quote
If you downplay the weaknesses of an argument you are omitting all the evidence in support of [the weakness].

If you're downplaying the weakness of an argument, you're presenting the weaknesses but trivialising them as being less than critical defects.

You don't need to omit anything. You need simply state your opinion that the weaknesses are nothing more than minor instances where your argument is somewhat 'iffy'.

Like if I was to say I could throw better than you, but that I had a weak arm. I wouldn't be omitting the fact that I had a weak arm - I'd be stating that even with such a weakness I am able to throw better than you.

Quote
Especially when it comes to a logical argument rather than one based on emotion. If you gave equal weight to evidence that supported an opposing point of view you wouldn't be downplaying it now would you?

The 'weight' of any evidence should be completely seperate from the matter of it's associated implications. It's 'weight' should be based entirely on observable reliability and truth.

So it's entirely reasonable to disregard 'evidence' which supports an opposing viewpoint if it's source if questionable or is the source is biased. So, once again, no omission is required. You simply undermine it's credibility by finding flaws in the source and the source's reliability.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 21, 2005, 01:36:50 pm: Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
If you're downplaying the weakness of an argument, you're presenting the weaknesses but trivialising them as being less than critical defects.

You don't need to omit anything. You need simply state your opinion that the weaknesses are nothing more than minor instances where your argument is somewhat 'iffy'.

Hmmm. I've noticed I put the word all in that sentence rather than some. By all I meant that you're ignoring the totality of the evidence rather than you're omitting every single piece.

Anyway, for the sake of discussion lets assume that the evidence for and against the opinion are of equal validity and roughly as strong for both arguments like in the example I stated of the scientists with opposing theories. Now do you see where I'm coming from?

If you're not giving equal weight to the other evidence you must be omitting some of it seeing as how you could talk about it for just as long.

The point was that in a situation like that I wouldn't partiucularly defend either viewpoint. I'd simply state the facts, say that in my opinion one of them was true because it had slightly more evidence or fit better with other theories. I would however state that there was a very good chance the other theory was correct.

You see the difference between that and still continuing to pump up the strengths of one side while saying that the other argument is wrong even when there is very little to choose between the two?

Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
So it's entirely reasonable to disregard 'evidence' which supports an opposing viewpoint if it's source if questionable or is the source is biased. So, once again, no omission is required. You simply undermine it's credibility by finding flaws in the source and the source's reliability.

Wanted to address this bit seperately. If the evidence is flawed it's not really evidence is it? If I say that the moon is made of green cheese and I know that cause the gremlin who lives in my closet told me that's evidence of nothing more than my insanity. It certainly can't be taken as evidence in favour of the composition of the moon.

By evidence I mean actual evidence. Not conjecture or supposition
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 21, 2005, 02:29:51 pm: Quote
Originally posted by Osiri

Aldo, you have finally got my point but you are still arguing it.
You are presenting the facts as YOU see them as you want to read them. You did not take notice of the 3 times I corrected myself. You just saw the post that SUPPORTED your argument and disregarded reading the other ones.

I clearly stated before your post that I didn't mean literally that bubble sort itself would be patentable.

Further, it is irrelevant exactly what your stance on patents was.

My point is that your statements were a misrepresentation of my standards. Regardless of anything you knew my standards were not that 90% of the algorithms in CS should CURRENTLY be patented. As such you misrepresented me as a part of your argument which is exactly what you are trying to say you did not do.

If you really believed that a Computer Scientist believed that 90% of my own work should have been illegal can I have what your on.

Remember I too have a CS degree.

Anyway you guys have both misrepresented me. This was done by taking what your THOUGHT I was saying and exaggerating it to an extreme.

Well, i can't comment on what Kara thinks your saying, or what Kamikaze thinks your saying, can I?

But I didn't exaggerate. I drew a logical, final conclusion. You don't like that? Fine. But don't call me a liar for stating what I think.

I've explained - multiple times - exactly what my opinion is and why I held it. You might not like my reasoning, you may not agree with it, but that does not mean I cannot hold it. It does not mean I lied or exaggerated.

And please don't try and insult me with sly, snidey remarks like 'you finally got my point'. That's just not on, and it won't win points.

I notice you've been stating quite a few absolutes here yourself, as if they were anything but points of opinion. Telling people they're wrong, for example, because they disagree with you. Insinuating they're idiots and are incapable of getting your point, as if it were the only and unquestioned truth.

Your entire arguement with kara has, I noticed, essentially turned into you saying 'aldo and kara are doing the wrong thing and I'm not'. You've already dismissed my prior objections in the referred thread as not regarding weakness, when in fact you've decided to judge what is and what is not a key weakness or strength all for youself.

Not to mention you have wilfully misrepresented Karajorma yourself; you've opted to attack him by drawing vague insinuations that can only arise from someone seeking to conceive an insult against. I'll concede that's easy to do; perhaps I've just done so myself. But I don't believe I've ever resorted to the 'you insulted me so I'm right' argument, or claimed infallibility.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 21, 2005, 02:38:42 pm: Vague? I was straight forward.

Read my posts. I said you were not liars. You do misrepresent and disregard facts though

I admitted that I do what I am talking about. I do not lie. I do make arguments. I do sometimes represent opinions as fact. This is a misrepresentation to some extent so I AM GUILTY. FORGIVE ME. I am not saying that anything I have done is morally culpable. Just not absolute truth, I know its not absolute truth.

Kara did directly attack my credibility. Regardless of how he followed up at that point in time he was attacking my credibility with misrepresentation.

You are blowing what I am saying way out of proportion.

Both of you are disregarding one fact. You told me that I was wrong not the other way around. You provoked me. It was not that you disagreed with me, you told me I was flat wrong. I have challenged your arguments. You have made representations knowing they were not fact. This was the point of my original post. You shouldn't have expected me to disregard the original point of the post.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 21, 2005, 02:46:43 pm: Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
Vague? I was straight forward.

Read my posts. I said you were not liars. You do misrepresent and disregard facts though

I admitted that I do what I am talking about. I do not lie. I do make arguments. I do sometimes represent opinions as fact. This is a misrepresentation to some extent so I AM GUILTY. FORGIVE ME. I am not saying that anything I have done is morally culpable. Just not absolute truth, I know its not absolute truth.

Kara did directly attack my credibility. Regardless of how he followed up at that point in time he was attacking my credibility with misrepresentation.

You are blowing what I am saying way out of proportion.

Both of you are disregarding one fact. You told me that I was wrong not the other way around. You provoked me. It was not that you disagreed with me, you told me I was flat wrong. I have challenged your arguments. You have made representations knowing they were not fact. This was the point of my original post. You shouldn't have expected me to disregard the original point of the post.

I said you lied about me disregarding facts or misrepresenting my reading of what you posted. Well, actually I think I just said you were wrong about that, which doesn't imply lying....

Basically, I think your original point was wrong, and the insinuation it made towards me was wrong. I stand by that, and I think I've explained exactly why I posted what you used as an example, and the context it was posted within.

I have never disregarded facts. I have never misreprented them (this does not mean I have never misunderstood or misread them; I have always honstly posted my interpretations).

So you're wrong about that. I'm sorry, but I know what I wrote, and I know why, and thus that you're wrong in what you think I did. And I did take offence from that, and perhaps get a bit less polite than I should have been. For that, I'm sorry. But you're still wrong. I'm not saying deliberately wrong, just that you've drawn the wrong conclusions, and I don't like what they would say about me if left unchallenged.

That simple.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 21, 2005, 02:53:40 pm: Who said anything about this only applying to HLP or internet posting. Aldo what I am saying is that you presented facts and didn't look at some other posts and claimed that they were the pertinent posts. I showed the claim of pertinence was incorrect because of the two corrections I had made as to the post you used to justify. If you worked your way back 5 or so posts why did you not read and acknowledge the intermediate posts. Did you just magically find it or did you go to your post that I quoted and read back. Either way, the representation that the post you cited was the pertinent post was not correct and you had either disregard or failed to read the posts.

Yes it was your final conclusion. Whether that conclusion was misrepresentative is the point.

I will accept that you just magically pulled the only time I said that out of the air. You did not have to read back to find it. I will accept that. But you still represented that you had checked. At least that was the representation that I understood. I say this because if I had not read the intermediate posts I would have accepted blame and admitted that it was a bad citation on my part. I found proof otherwise and you simply do not want to admit it.

That simple.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 21, 2005, 02:57:54 pm: I disagree and stand by what I said previously in this thread and others. I've already explained exactly my chain of reasoning.

You don't believe me, it's your problem, not mine.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 21, 2005, 04:39:51 pm: Quote
If I say that the moon is made of green cheese and I know that cause the gremlin who lives in my closet told me that's evidence of nothing more than my insanity. It certainly can't be taken as evidence in favour of the composition of the moon.

Why not? If the Gremlin is known to be a reliable source of information, then the moon may very well be made of cheese.

Think of it this way: Gremlin = Scientist; Closet = Radio telescope.
Quote
By evidence I mean actual evidence. Not conjecture or supposition.

If you're implying evidence is only valid if it's tangible, then most of humanity's scientific advancement can be dismissed as unsubstatiated guesswork with a 'house of cards' mentality.

To put it simply, in the case of vaguery, supposition and conjecture, it's a case of "No smoke without fire". The trouble comes in when people start mistaking a cigarette smouldering on the pavement for the rainforest burning to the ground.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 21, 2005, 04:56:37 pm: Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
Read my posts. I said you were not liars. You do misrepresent and disregard facts though.

Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
Everyone knows that they do not know everything and thus they all are lying in a way. The question is who is lying because they are disregarding the truth and who is lying because they just don't have all the right sources.

and

Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
The lie is when you are trying to support your opinion.

I take exception to you saying I'm a liar. I happen to take your entire tone in this discussion as rather insulting. You've claimed to know what is going on in my head despite me repeatedly telling you that you're wrong. You don't know me. Who the F**k do you think you are to tell me what goes on in my head?

You continually claim I'm deliberately misrepresenting you when I'm doing nothing of the sort. Both myself and Aldo have repeatedly stated that there is a difference between deliberate misrepresentation and misunderstanding. I even took the time to spell it out in black and white for you and yet you still insist on arrogantly assuming that I am deliberately misrepresenting you when I have repeatedly stated that I'm not doing anything of the kind.

Furthermore you've not even acknowledged the possibility that someone could misunderstand.

Judging from his replies Aldo takes exception the the exact same things.

Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
Kara did directly attack my credibility. Regardless of how he followed up at that point in time he was attacking my credibility with misrepresentation.

Bollocks. Are we back to that claim that I insulted all lawyers again? That insult existed in your mind alone. The only one misrepresenting the truth here is you. You've continued to do that again and again despite evidence to the contrary.

And even if that had been the comment you took it to be (Which it most definately was not) most people understand that the particular smilie that followed the comment is indicative of a joke instead of an insult. Instead of having some semblance of a sense of humour you launched into a tirade about how lawyers aren't liars and thieves despite the fact that no one had said that.

I didn't attack your credibility. You're doing a good enough job of it yourself by taking imagined slights and blowing them completely out of proportion.

If you're on about some other incidence rather than that ridiculous "he insulted lawyers" claim feel free to point it out. No doubt it will just be another attempt to set up a strawman with claims of how I'm misrepresenting you.

Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
Both of you are disregarding one fact. You told me that I was wrong not the other way around. You provoked me.

You started it. Wah Wah Wah. You provoked me! Wah Wah Wah.

Is this the level your argument has been forced to descend to?

If you aren't prepared to defend your philosophical musings then don't bother making them.

N.B. The funniest thing is that not only is a stupid and childish argument which is completely irrelevent to the discussion but it's also incorrect.
My first reply to you was to voice an opinion which you said was flat out incorrect. If you're going to play the ridiculous "he started it" game you should have at least taken a look at who actually did start it. :lol:

Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
It was not that you disagreed with me, you told me I was flat wrong. I have challenged your arguments. You have made representations knowing they were not fact. This was the point of my original post. You shouldn't have expected me to disregard the original point of the post.

I can flat out tell you that you're wrong and it not be an opinion if you're claiming to know how my thought processes work. I'm a world expert on how Karajorma's mind works. There is no one more qualified in the world. Had you said your comments were in general I would have disagreed with your opinion but you said you were talking about everyone. I'm part of everyone and I know that you are wrong. Flat out wrong.
Maybe I'm the only exception but in my case I know you are wrong so I can flat out tell you that you're wrong to say that everyone thinks the way you imagine that they do.

If you did actually know me rather than arrogantly assuming you do based on the small number of posts of mine you've read then you'd know that people quoting opinion, conjecture or assumptions as fact is actually one of my pet peeves. I always try to qualify statements when I don't know if they are fact with IIRC or AFAIK.
If you actually knew me you'd know that when I don't know something I try to find proof and quote a source.

In fact the only person who does that as much as me is Aldo which probably has a lot to do with why we were both so insulted by your continued assertions that we both misrepresent the truth in order to win arguments.

The fact is that as I said before doing that is part of your job as a lawyer but neither I nor Aldo are lawyers and in our professions misrepresenting the truth is actually the exact opposite of the way we should work.
You're making the same mistake I warned you about right at the start. Just because you do it doesn't mean that we do.

As for your second post to Aldo you've got some damned cheek to go on about ignoring information in postings when you still continue to ignore my requests for clarification and explainations of how I stand on the matter.

Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
Why not? If the Gremlin is known to be a reliable source of information, then the moon may very well be made of cheese.

Think of it this way: Gremlin = Scientist; Closet = Radio telescope.:

:wtf:

If you believe that gremlins are a good source of anything other than a couple halfway decent movies starring Phoebe Cates you need your head examined.

Seriously I have no desire to argue the semantics of what gremlins are knowledgable about seeing as how they are entirely fictitious.

Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
If you're implying evidence is only valid if it's tangible, then most of humanity's scientific advancement can be dismissed as unsubstatiated guesswork with a 'house of cards' mentality.

Bollocks. Scientific theory is not conjecture or supposition. It is in fact both testible and provable in the majority of cases.

You've said yourself that it's entirely reasonable to disregard 'evidence' if it's source if questionable or is the source is biased.

You said that evidence = every single comment, experiment, eyewitness whatever regardless of how fanciful it is.

I've stated that for the purpose of this discussion I was using the term to describe what's left after everything has been discarded that you have already claimed is perfectly reasonable to discard.

That's not an opposing viewpoint. That's simply using the word in a different (and I believe more correct) fashion to the way you seem to want to use it so I have no idea why you've embarked on this discussion of semantics with me.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 21, 2005, 05:34:57 pm: Quote
Originally posted by Scottish

Why not? If the Gremlin is known to be a reliable source of information, then the moon may very well be made of cheese.

Think of it this way: Gremlin = Scientist; Closet = Radio telescope.

If you're implying evidence is only valid if it's tangible, then most of humanity's scientific advancement can be dismissed as unsubstatiated guesswork with a 'house of cards' mentality.

To put it simply, in the case of vaguery, supposition and conjecture, it's a case of "No smoke without fire". The trouble comes in when people start mistaking a cigarette smouldering on the pavement for the rainforest burning to the ground.

Quote

Definitions of tangible;
* perceptible by the senses especially the sense of touch; "skin with a tangible roughness"
* real: capable of being treated as fact; "tangible evidence"; "his brief time as Prime Minister brought few real benefits to the poor"
* (of especially business assets) having physical substance and intrinsic monetary value ; "tangible property like real estate"; "tangible assets such as machinery"
* palpable: capable of being perceived by the senses or the mind; especially capable of being handled or touched or felt; "a barely palpable dust"; "felt sudden anger in a palpable wave"; "the air was warm and close--palpable as cotton"

The only inverse of that would surely have to be intangible.

[q]# (of especially business assets) not having physical substance or intrinsic productive value; "intangible assets such as good will"
# incapable of being perceived by the senses especially the sense of touch; "the intangible constituent of energy"- James Jeans
# hard to pin down or identify; "an intangible feeling of impending disaster"
# assets that are saleable though not material or physical
# lacking substance or reality; incapable of being touched or seen; "that intangible thing--the soul" [/q]

Science is based on the basis of observations, made from evidence, leading to hypotheses proven or disproven by experimental evidence.

By definition, evidence used within a scientific rationale cannot be intangible, because it cannot be measured and documented as evidencial fact.

That's the problem, also with your 'gremlin' comparison. Because we know a gremlin is not a reliable source of facts because it does not exist. There is no gremlin. If it told kara the moon was made of green cheese, it would because it was a hallucination or schizophrenic episode. And if there was a gremlin, it would have no more ability or truth than me saying that Einsteins theory of relativity was completely incorrect and we should in fact be using a fusili-based theory of the great Spaghetti Monster.

The reliability of a source, like a scientific source, can only be judged by evidence. Tangible evidence, because intangible is not measurable or recordable. In turn, scientific progress can only be made by tangible evidence. Yes, we can make sudden guesses, jumps of logic - but we cannot progress and build upon that without something to test, a way to prove or disprove.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: .::Tin Can::. on October 21, 2005, 10:58:48 pm: Hm... what to do, what to do... :blah:
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 21, 2005, 11:05:27 pm: But my point was that all the 'evidence' of science being right is circular.

The only reason a scientist is a more valid source than a gremlin is because you've decided he is - because you've decided his conclusions best support your argument and that his foundations more closely conform to your own universal beliefs.

Just because a scientist mixes two chemicals and accurately predicts the colour of the poisonous gas that comes off, doesn't mean he's accurately predicted the chemical reactions involved, or that he's even remotely close to being right.

At each and every turn, science has been superceded by newer, better science. And yet with each and every generation, the world clings to the idea that it's own conclusions in regards to the physics of the universe are right and infallible and will last forever.

Same with religion too. The Greeks put their survival down to their Gods being more powerful than the Gods of their enemies, then they were wiped from the face of the Earth and Christianity started using the exact same arguments to justify their divine purpose.

And finally, going back to the Gremlin: Science only says the Gremlin doesn't exist because it doesn't conform to scientific analysis. But what if the Gremlin says science doesn't exist?
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 21, 2005, 11:11:44 pm: And, incidentally, your criteria for determining the reliability of a source is biased towards Science, in that they are based on observable truths, which is a foundation of scientific research.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 22, 2005, 03:27:22 am: Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
But my point was that all the 'evidence' of science being right is circular. [SNIP]

Your claim that evidence can be biased is similarly circular.

You've already stated that you can discard evidence that is wrong. On what criterion would you base that on then?

Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
At each and every turn, science has been superceded by newer, better science. And yet with each and every generation, the world clings to the idea that it's own conclusions in regards to the physics of the universe are right and infallible and will last forever.

You couldn't be more wrong about science. Any scientist who claims his conclusions are infallible has left the scientific method far behind.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 22, 2005, 09:19:47 am: Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
But my point was that all the 'evidence' of science being right is circular.

The only reason a scientist is a more valid source than a gremlin is because you've decided he is - because you've decided his conclusions best support your argument and that his foundations more closely conform to your own universal beliefs.
Wrong. Because the scientist has measurable - tangible - evidence and proof rather than hearsay.

Just because a scientist mixes two chemicals and accurately predicts the colour of the poisonous gas that comes off, doesn't mean he's accurately predicted the chemical reactions involved, or that he's even remotely close to being right.
By that definition, 2+2=4 is a coincidence and may just a be quirk. If I press the brake and my car stops, it may infact not be due to the brake action. And soforth.

At each and every turn, science has been superceded by newer, better science. And yet with each and every generation, the world clings to the idea that it's own conclusions in regards to the physics of the universe are right and infallible and will last forever.
That's complete rubbish. Science has always been regarded as disproveable - if there is evidence to do so.

Same with religion too. The Greeks put their survival down to their Gods being more powerful than the Gods of their enemies, then they were wiped from the face of the Earth and Christianity started using the exact same arguments to justify their divine purpose.
Um. you do know the difference between science and religion, don't you? i.e. the concept of testability? Faith does not set conditions for proof or disproof, nor ways to test these using observable, measurable, quantifiable evidence.

And finally, going back to the Gremlin: Science only says the Gremlin doesn't exist because it doesn't conform to scientific analysis. But what if the Gremlin says science doesn't exist?
You don't exist, and all the evidence to the contrary is the manipulations of the great Spaghetti monster. Does that work for you? Is that the best explanation?

:rolleyes: I know that's a right tit to quote, but it's easier for me :)

If you can explain how you can have an unobservable truth, I'd be much obliged.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 22, 2005, 10:39:27 am: Man don't yall have anything better to do on a Friday night. I come back from a lifesize maze with fiance and then hard dancing collapsing from complete exhaustion. I wake up this morning and you guys have left me with pages of materials. Go out and get a girl for God sake.

You are now misrepresenting Scottish's statments. He is not saying anything quite so extreme as you are representing him to say. Why don't yall learn to read and understand someone elses opinion before rejecting it. Ask for further explanation before telling someone they are flat out wrong.

In this case, you are flat out wrong.

Quote Scottish
_________________________________________________
Just because a scientist mixes two chemicals and accurately predicts the colour of the poisonous gas that comes off, doesn't mean he's accurately predicted the chemical reactions involved, or that he's even remotely close to being right.
_________________________________________________

By saying that scientist mixing chemicals does not know what exactly is going on, he is absolutely right. Chemist don't know everything happening. If they did, Chemistry would simply be the mathmatical truth that Computer Science is. Chemist know alot about the reaction but Scotty's point is that you cannot know what exactly is going on in the mix. This is not the same as 2+2=4. This is 2H2 + O2 = 2H2O. What happens exactly in the meantime is not really known perfectly.

In many newer reactions, a scientist may think that one thing is happening only to have to publish a retraction and revision in a scientific journal.

That means that the reaction made it through extremely tough peer review and the entire scientific group behind that got it wrong. At some point the scientific community figures out what was wrong and fixes the mistake. The chemist still did something right but may not know what he did right.

You might as well have asked the gremlin sitting next to the scientist what was going on. He is magical and might have known what was actually happening. Hell gremlins can make themselves invisible to us so they must have an extremely advanced grasp on physics and chemistry and would actually know.

_____________

Aldo and Kara seem to be internet bullies. I have yet to see them agree with anyone other than themselves.

So far they seem to say you are wrong and here is the OPINION that I have that I base it on.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 22, 2005, 10:46:16 am: [q]Man don't yall have anything better to do on a Friday night. I come back from a lifesize maze with fiance and then hard dancing and you guys have left me with pages of materials. Go out and get a girl for God sake.

Aldo and Kara seem to be internet bullies. I have yet to see them agree with anyone other than themselves. [/q]

Please stop insulting me & karajorma for stating our opinions.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 22, 2005, 10:50:53 am: I said you SEEM TO BE. I was not implying that that is who you are. You are just being very stubborn about even looking to someone elses point of view.

EDIT:
Anyone who does not believe me I will post a video of us dancing.
End EDIT:

I don't know you and will not say that you really get a kick out of bullying. But you are doing so. You two are simply saying that anything you don't instantly agree with is wrong.

I didn't agree with the statement by Scottish either until I realized what he was saying. Now that I understand I know he had a valid point.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 22, 2005, 10:51:29 am: Oh and the girl thing was a serious comment. You would be much happier.

OKAY I NEED TO EXPLAIN SOMETHING.

This is my way of trying to lighten a mood vs. actually piss you off.

Alot of the things that have made you guys mad have been jokes.

The serious part of the above message is that both of you have misrepresented what Scottish was saying and that you made him look like a fool when he had a valid point.

Please stop making fun of others.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 22, 2005, 10:56:15 am: I don't take kindly to insults, even when you try to hide them under some veil of 'could be', may be. You have absolutely no ****ing right to presume anything about me, nor less to try and turn some form of made up 'observation' into an attack.

You've been here what, less than a month? You don't even know the slightest bit about me or karajorma.

EDIT; hey, they fixed the swear filter. Cool.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 22, 2005, 11:00:57 am: Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
Man don't yall have anything better to do on a Friday night. I come back from a lifesize maze with fiance and then hard dancing collapsing from complete exhaustion. I wake up this morning and you guys have left me with pages of materials. Go out and get a girl for God sake.

I have a girl. She's read the topic. She told me to verbally kick your arse :D

I'm such a lucky guy ;)

Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
Aldo and Kara seem to be internet bullies.

Damned right! Five minutes from now when Aldo gets back we're going to turn you upside down and stick your head in the toilet. I'd do it on my own but I think I sprained my thumb giving Scottish a wedgie and I'd only have to do it again when he gets back anyway. :lol:

Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
I have yet to see them agree with anyone other than themselves. So far they seem to say you are wrong and here is the OPINION that I have that I base it on.

I find it incredibly funny that you've completely failed to answer a single comment I've made and now have resorted to calling me and Aldo names in order to win. :lol:

Apart from this topic how often have I actually posted on a topic you were talking about? I made a couple of comments on Fragaria's topic and that's about it.
If you've only bothered to look at two topics where I happened to disagree with you and agree with Aldo before making such a ludicrous comment then you really don't have much of a case. Every scientist will tell you that two points on graph do not indicate a data trend.

You only need to look a little further to find all kind of topics where I agree with people. Of course you didn't do that because I wouldn't expect you do something as obvious as doing research before making assertions.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 22, 2005, 11:03:59 am: Quote
Originally posted by karajorma

Damned right! Five minutes from now when Aldo gets back we're going to turn you upside down and stick your head in the toilet. I'd do it on my own but I think I sprained my thumb giving Scottish a wedgie and I'd only have to do it again when he gets back anyway. :lol:

Can I get his lunch money? :drevil:
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 22, 2005, 11:11:47 am: YOU'RE KIDDING. BUT ALL I POSTED WAS MY FINAL CONCLUSIVE BELIEF BASED ON ALL THAT I KNEW BASED ON THE ONLY TWO THREADS I HAVE BEEN INVOLVED IN DISCUSSIONS WITH YOU. I THOUGHT THAT SINCE MY HONEST OPINION WAS BASED ON YOUR ACTIONS HERE THAT WOULD BE ENOUGH TO NOT BE A MISREPRESENTATION AND NOT A LIE OF ANY SORT. I am soo sorry I just started following your methods.

Now you are turning on your own logic. Your logic has been thus far that your opinions were based on all that you knew and as such were not misrepresentations.

Now look to my follow ups and see that I was merely playing about the internet bully thing. As to harming me phyiscally good luck. ;7

I fail to understand this whole fail to answer a single one of your comments comment. I guess I can go back and look but could you give me an example of a comment that you WANT answered. I have thus far really only been trying to show your that you are being a sarcastic know it all on this particular thread. That does not mean you are that on other threads.

Further, I take offense to you and aldo playing this whole we're the victims here. You have been every bit as, if not more, insulting as than I. Just look at what you wrote last. I am a scientist myself I know two data points are meaningless. Unless thats all you got and you are forced to make a prediction of thier meaning. Scientists have to do this all the time. You cannot always use the cop out of I don't know enough. You have to make predictions.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 22, 2005, 11:18:34 am: Just out of curiousity did either of you bother to read what I said in defense of Scottish. That was the real point of that post.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 22, 2005, 11:47:05 am: Seeing as how it didn't apply to me I ignored it.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 22, 2005, 11:47:53 am: You attacked Scottish just as much as Aldo. It applied to both of you.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 22, 2005, 11:52:34 am: I could have posted a defense of the world wants to invision its own beliefs as infallible but I don't feel like it at the moment.

For example look at how the world looked with disgust at anyone who supported M-Theory and now it is becoming a much more accepted thing. It is unifying all of the 10th dimension theories.

This is how science thinks it is infallible. It does not accept new theories until it has to.

Skepticism is not be a bad thing but it gets a little extreme sometimes. Sometimes science is stubborn and just refuses to give any credence to new theories that have validity. Clinging to an old thought is not skepticism.

This is bad because we want to look at every possibly valid theory. We should not arbitrarily ignore possibilities.

This hampers scientific advance.

Arrogance in science is not helpful and it is widespread.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 22, 2005, 12:18:29 pm: I'll simplify my explaination:

All your criteria for truth are based on scientific principle. Therefore, science is at an unfair advantage.

That's about as simple as I can put it.

And despite all your *****ing about omission of evidence and The Truth™ and being open to possibilities, you're still clinging to a set of scientific principles for determining what's Right™ and True™. This is closing you off from accepting the fact that religion only seems stupid because you're judging it using scientific standards. Similarly, when science is viewed using religious standards it's equally stupid.

You're desperately clawing at the excuse of "I see it, so it's true" because it offers you a very simplistic 'proof' that science is right and that observable truths are universal truths.

Whereas religious people would cling to the excuse of "It's true because it's true", which operates infinitely better in a vacuum while having no observable truths. But if you've chosen that path you don't need any - you have the universal truth behind all things, wether they can be explained or not. Your beliefs are simply right.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 22, 2005, 12:28:06 pm: Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
YOU'RE KIDDING. BUT ALL I POSTED WAS MY FINAL CONCLUSIVE BELIEF BASED ON ALL THAT I KNEW BASED ON THE ONLY TWO THREADS I HAVE BEEN INVOLVED IN DISCUSSIONS WITH YOU. I THOUGHT THAT SINCE MY HONEST OPINION WAS BASED ON YOUR ACTIONS HERE THAT WOULD BE ENOUGH TO NOT BE A MISREPRESENTATION AND NOT A LIE OF ANY SORT.

Look above your shift key and you'll see this button with the words Caps Lock on it. If you've never pressed it before now would be a good time to learn how to use it :rolleye:

I've told you before that shouting is rude and unnecessary in this discussion. If you can't argue without resorting to insults, incorrect guesses about my social life and shouting I have no interest in continuing this discussion with you and will simply write you off as another one of the multitude of obnoxious morons who inhabit the internet.

In short. If you want to discuss try doing so. If you want to make jokes and largely ignore every single post I have written on this topic except when you can twist the truth round to some kind of insult then the ignore button beckons.

Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
I am soo sorry I just started following your methods.

Now you are turning on your own logic. Your logic has been thus far that your opinions were based on all that you knew and as such were not misrepresentations.

Incorrect. You missed the point I made that when I don't know enough to comment on a subject I either research the subject further or I keep quiet on the subject.

As I said earlier 2 data points are not indicative of a trend. If you had bothered to do some research before posting you might have discovered how wrong your opinions were but you didn't.

Don't bother attempting to claim that you have acted in the same way I have when you quite clearly have not.

Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
I fail to understand this whole fail to answer a single one of your comments comment. I guess I can go back and look but could you give me an example of a comment that you WANT answered. I have thus far really only been trying to show your that you are being a sarcastic know it all on this particular thread. That does not mean you are that on other threads.

Nosense of the highest order. You claimed that I was a bully. You didn't say that I have bullied you on this particular thread. You implied that I do it on every thread. Those are very different things.

As for questions I've posted that you have ignored. Here's a small selection.

Quote
If you can prove that my intention was to insult you feel free to do so. Seeing as how

a) I doubt you're telepathic either
b) I wasn't trying to insult you

I doubt you'll find it easy.

Quote
Let me get this straight. Taking the example of the court case Flipside posted. Are you telling me that as a defence lawyer if the defendant had said to all the his friends that he was going to kill that guy shortly before the incident you'd put the friends on the stand and make them say that even if the prosecution didn't know it?

Cause that is quite clearly a lie of omission even though I'm sure that most lawyers would do it.

Quote
Make your choice or feel free to point out another alternative.

Quote
Are we back to that claim that I insulted all lawyers again?

Quote
If you're on about some other incidence rather than that ridiculous "he insulted lawyers" claim feel free to point it out.

And that's just a small sampling of the number of questions I've asked that you've ignored. You've pretty much ignored every post of I've made except to reitterate your pathetic claims that I am misrepresenting you (Ignoring my requests for more clarity and comments that I acknowledge that I might have been misunderstanding you) and that I insulted all lawyers everywhere.

Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
Further, I take offense to you and aldo playing this whole we're the victims here. You have been every bit as, if not more, insulting as than I.

Absolute complete and utter nonsense. You've arrogantly claimed to know my social life and that I need a girlfriend and you've called me a bully.

Where outside of the insult about lawyers which you fabricated have I said anything similar to you?

Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
Just look at what you wrote last. I am a scientist myself I know two data points are meaningless. Unless thats all you got and you are forced to make a prediction of thier meaning. Scientists have to do this all the time. You cannot always use the cop out of I don't know enough. You have to make predictions.

How is calling me a bully a prediction? It's an assertion and and an insulting one at that.

A prediction based on such a small amount of data is something that very few scientists ever bother to make because it carries such a huge margin of error. If two data points are all you've got you'd be advised to simply avoid predicting and simply studing the data as it comes in.

Secondly 2 data points isn't all you have. You could look at all the other discussions on this forum. It's not my fault that you're too lazy to bother doing some research instead of making pointless, easily disprovable assertions.

Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
You attacked Scottish just as much as Aldo. It applied to both of you.

Your reply was a response to Aldo's comments. It contained nothing relevent to what I had said. If I did miss something feel free to enlighten me.

If you're so keen on defending Scottish perhaps you'd instead like to answer the question I put to him on how you choose which evidence can be discarded instead of wasting your time trying to speculate about my love life again.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 22, 2005, 01:04:53 pm: Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
I'll simplify my explaination:

All your criteria for truth are based on scientific principle. Therefore, science is at an unfair advantage.

That's about as simple as I can put it.

And despite all your *****ing about omission of evidence and The Truth™ and being open to possibilities, you're still clinging to a set of scientific principles for determining what's Right™ and True™. This is closing you off from accepting the fact that religion only seems stupid because you're judging it using scientific standards. Similarly, when science is viewed using religious standards it's equally stupid.

You're desperately clawing at the excuse of "I see it, so it's true" because it offers you a very simplistic 'proof' that science is right and that observable truths are universal truths.

Whereas religious people would cling to the excuse of "It's true because it's true", which operates infinitely better in a vacuum while having no observable truths. But if you've chosen that path you don't need any - you have the universal truth behind all things, wether they can be explained or not. Your beliefs are simply right.

The 'excuse' - rationale in actuality - is 'I can see it, thus I know it is there, thus I can examine it and try to understand it'.

AFAIK you've said science is essentially unreliable because it relies on tangibles (I'd suggest that scientific methods of measuring actually exist because of what exists and is postulated to exist to be measured); but what else can be relied upon?

I'm not sure exactly what you're implying - that we should accept any evidence because it may exist, not because it actually does? That we cannot measure anything without changing it from what it is? (granted, there's the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, but that doesn't preclude that we're measuring something that exists, and it's not a universal principle anyways) That anything observed is only as important as that which does not exist to be observed but may exist as unobservable?

There is an infinite amount of possible 'truth' that could fit into (urgh, this is a horrible way to try and phrase this) an 'intangible universe', but we cannot rely upon something that may or may not exist as any form of rationale.

I'm not sure what your point is - that science can only measure and rely upon what is known and can be shown to exist? History, certainly, has not shown science to be immutable to change and revision, and it's not shown science to regard the currently observable 'universe' as the only observable (just the best and most reliable source of evidence).

Can you define or cite an intangle, unmeasurable or unobservable 'fact' (nee truth) which can be known to be reliably 'true'? That we can trust without seeing, and without it being just blind faith?

Science has never presented itself as 'The Truth' (sorry, I don't know the correct code for 'TM' superscript), just the best answer based on what we know. That is all science is. Belief, faith draws absolutes, science draws the most likely, the most probably, the strongest, etc etc conclusion, theory or object based on what we know and can test. Science allows intangibles, it plans them, predicts them where possible - but it doesn't rely upon them, it doesn't assume them to be true, false or otherwise.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 22, 2005, 01:19:00 pm: What am I? F**king invisible or something?

I ask questions and never recieve a response. :rolleyes:
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 22, 2005, 01:21:52 pm: Quote
Originally posted by karajorma
What am I? F**king invisible or something?

I dunno. I can see your post online, but that's just using my eyes, and they can't see everything, so it's unknown.

Quote
Originally posted by karajorma
I ask questions and never recieve a response. :rolleyes:

Maybe you're asking questions that are too hard?
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: vyper on October 22, 2005, 02:16:19 pm: Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
YOU'RE KIDDING. BUT ALL I POSTED WAS MY FINAL CONCLUSIVE BELIEF BASED ON ALL THAT I KNEW BASED ON THE ONLY TWO THREADS I HAVE BEEN INVOLVED IN DISCUSSIONS WITH YOU. I THOUGHT THAT SINCE MY HONEST OPINION WAS BASED ON YOUR ACTIONS HERE THAT WOULD BE ENOUGH TO NOT BE A MISREPRESENTATION AND NOT A LIE OF ANY SORT. I am soo sorry I just started following your methods.

Jumping the gun FTW! :D
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 22, 2005, 07:39:45 pm: Quote
Originally posted by aldo_14

The 'excuse' - rationale in actuality - is 'I can see it, thus I know it is there, thus I can examine it and try to understand it'.

Just because you see something doesn't make it true.

Quote
AFAIK you've said science is essentially unreliable because it relies on tangibles (I'd suggest that scientific methods of measuring actually exist because of what exists and is postulated to exist to be measured); but what else can be relied upon?

Well, the obvious answer would be 'faith'.

But I prefer to rely simply on my knowledge that nothing is inherantly right - regardless of how well it works.

Quote
I'm not sure exactly what you're implying - that we should accept any evidence because it may exist, not because it actually does? That we cannot measure anything without changing it from what it is? (granted, there's the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, but that doesn't preclude that we're measuring something that exists, and it's not a universal principle anyways) That anything observed is only as important as that which does not exist to be observed but may exist as unobservable?

I'm implying that before you take Evidence to be Truth, you should examine what made you decide the Evidence was valid in the first place - what defined your criteria for Truth.

Quote
There is an infinite amount of possible 'truth' that could fit into (urgh, this is a horrible way to try and phrase this) an 'intangible universe', but we cannot rely upon something that may or may not exist as any form of rationale.

We cannot rely on anything, as we can never reliably assign it an absolute value, and we must bear this in mind when trying to find Truth.

If something works, use it, but don't keep saying it works when it stops working.

All that our knowledge will ever amount to is a 'best guess'. Never an absolute Truth.

Quote
I'm not sure what your point is - that science can only measure and rely upon what is known and can be shown to exist? History, certainly, has not shown science to be immutable to change and revision, and it's not shown science to regard the currently observable 'universe' as the only observable (just the best and most reliable source of evidence).

You consider Scientific Method to be a tool of Science, when infact, Science is simply the accumulated knowledge of Scientific Method.

So when you try to analyse anything using 'impartial observation', you're subjecting it to the standards of Science. Which is why Religion appears stupid in the eyes of a scientist. It doesn't conform to Scientific Method, so you assume it's Wrong, when infact it simply isn't Science.

Quote
Can you define or cite an intangle, unmeasurable or unobservable 'fact' (nee truth) which can be known to be reliably 'true'? That we can trust without seeing, and without it being just blind faith?

Again, you're doing the Science thing of assuming things which cannot be observed are Wrong.

You're asking for examples of Religion which conform to Science - and there simply are none. They're an entirely different manner.

I'm not trying to tell you how to view Religion from a Scientific perspective, I'm telling you to stop looking.

Quote
Science has never presented itself as 'The Truth' (sorry, I don't know the correct code for 'TM' superscript), just the best answer based on what we know. That is all science is. Belief, faith draws absolutes, science draws the most likely, the most probably, the strongest, etc etc conclusion, theory or object based on what we know and can test. Science allows intangibles, it plans them, predicts them where possible - but it doesn't rely upon them, it doesn't assume them to be true, false or otherwise.

But it assumes Scientific Method to be a measure of current Truth.

It never examines the possibility that the very dependence upon evidence may infact be a weakness in it's understanding of Truth.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: .::Tin Can::. on October 22, 2005, 09:16:37 pm: *nods towards original post* Before we derail the train so far that the cargo is lost, let's save what we can...
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 23, 2005, 02:04:43 am: Quote
Originally posted by aldo_14
Maybe you're asking questions that are too hard?

I think so. The question I asked Scottish for instance. I'm still waiting for a sensible answer to that one.

For all he's saying that other forms of evidence apart from visible and testable should be considered I'll notice that he's completely avoided saying what weight they should carry.

Should saying that gremlins did it carry equal weight with ballistic evidence in a court of law? Should I tell my boss that I was late to work because my unicorn was sick and not expect to get sacked? Is it a numbers thing? Can I get away with the above if I can find 10 witness who all claim to have seen my sick unicorn? What if I find 30? 100?

From Scottish's refusal to answer I guess we'll never know as he's refused explain on which criterion you can dump evidence as coming from a dodgy source or being biased.

The problem doesn't exist if you only take tangiable evidence in the first place but if Scottish really wants to argue the point he should do more than telling us science is wrong and start telling when and how it's right and when we have to use something else.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 23, 2005, 07:01:34 am: Quote
Originally posted by Scottish

Just because you see something doesn't make it true.

It means I can reasonably certain it exists. Can you see your hand? Do you doubt it exists? Do you think there is a more likely explanation for seeing a hand beyond there being, well, a 5 fightered appendage at the end of your arm?

I mean, we are still on the scientific issue of evidence here, aren't we? And science itself has never presumed absolutes - it's never presumed something is true, but that it is most likely to be true.

You seem to keep reiterating that scientific investigation - itself an extension of our own sensory perception - assumes absolucy (er, is that a word? :o) when it patently doesn't.

Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
Well, the obvious answer would be 'faith'.

But I prefer to rely simply on my knowledge that nothing is inherantly right - regardless of how well it works.

That is the scientific perception; nothing is defined as 'right', but most likely. Because to do so (presume it was right) would preclude further investigation. In the case of overwhelming evidence (that sort of includes intangible; because intangible may or may not exist, it's pretty safe to include that as infinity evidence for and infinity evidence against, and ignore it), then it becomes orthodoxy; but it is never considered un-disproveable.

Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
I'm implying that before you take Evidence to be Truth, you should examine what made you decide the Evidence was valid in the first place - what defined your criteria for Truth.

I don't take evidence to be 'Truth' - capital T or otherwise - but as, well, evidence pointing towards the most likely truth. And I consider evidence on the basis of my ability to perceive it, to measure it, i.e. to be able to know it is there.

Quote
Originally posted by Scottish

We cannot rely on anything, as we can never reliably assign it an absolute value, and we must bear this in mind when trying to find Truth.

What is 'Truth'? I've never dealt in absolutes; I don't believe there are any universal truths in actuality but I've never claimed to have proof of that because it's transcending the boundaries of an observable universe.

This in itself an important distinction; science works by examining the observable world; the supernatural is excluded because of its inobservable nature.

(note; I'm defining the supernatural as what can never be observed, thus known to exist, and not as that which is current;y observable but can be postulated to be at a later date, when hypotheses can be tested against it)

Quote
Originally posted by Scottish

If something works, use it, but don't keep saying it works when it stops working.

All that our knowledge will ever amount to is a 'best guess'. Never an absolute Truth.

Again, that's all science does. Except it quantifies best guesses with reasoning and evidence.

No-one (supporting the scientific perspective) here has claimed science has provided or intends to provide universal answers, nor that it continues to support insupportable theories. People may struggle to drop orthodoxy, but that's just human nature to cling to the familiar, not the correct scientific process.

If you're implying science has 'stopped working', I think you'll have to provide some sort of justification for that.

Quote
Originally posted by Scottish

You consider Scientific Method to be a tool of Science, when infact, Science is simply the accumulated knowledge of Scientific Method.

So when you try to analyse anything using 'impartial observation', you're subjecting it to the standards of Science. Which is why Religion appears stupid in the eyes of a scientist. It doesn't conform to Scientific Method, so you assume it's Wrong, when infact it simply isn't Science.

No, I don't. I assume it's (a theory espoused by religion) not as qualified as science, when it's not based upon or even contradicted by observable evidence. Because we can draw any conclusion based on inobservable evidence because we don't know what that evidence is.

The scientific method, incidentally, is the definition of how to investigate something. It's the evolution of human thought & sense processes for empirical investigation, dating from Ancient Egyptian times (the Elbers Papyrus - 1550BC - contains some evidence of empirical investigation) and more formally from about 5th BC.

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Originally posted by Scottish

Again, you're doing the Science thing of assuming things which cannot be observed are Wrong.

You're asking for examples of Religion which conform to Science - and there simply are none. They're an entirely different manner.

I'm not trying to tell you how to view Religion from a Scientific perspective, I'm telling you to stop looking.

Never was looking. Never said that inobservable was wrong. I said it could not be used as a basis for any conclusion, because it's essentially free to be invented to suit.

The only point where religion is viewed from a scientific perspective, is where science - that is, what we can observe and thus know to be happening - and directly contradicts religion. Like Genesis in the Bible.

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Originally posted by Scottish

But it assumes Scientific Method to be a measure of current Truth.

It never examines the possibility that the very dependence upon evidence may infact be a weakness in it's understanding of Truth.

What's the alternative? Just making stuff up?

Science is simple; A + B implies C, where A and B are observable and can be reliably known to be true as a result. Would like a situation where A + B + C implies D, where C is in fact completely unknown 'intangible evidence'? Would that make the conclusion more, or less reliable because it relies on a stated assumption?

And what exactly do you define 'Truth' as being/meaning? Presumably it's important enough for its own capital, and thus special in some way.

If it's the religious aspect of 'Truth' (universal truth, I suppose that would be), then that's entirely aside from science; the supernatural, the inobservable is of no value for investigating the observable universe. What would you suggest we do? I mean, science does already place constraints upon itself; it's not immutable, it relies upon basis and testing to prove events, it works within an observable universe where we can at least know things, and it doesn't presume to be absolute in its conclusions. What would you suggest as a better method for investigating the observable universe than, well, observing it?
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 23, 2005, 09:07:06 am: Quote
Originally posted by karajorma
I think so. The question I asked Scottish for instance. I'm still waiting for a sensible answer to that one.

I'm skimming the thread. I miss alot.

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For all he's saying that other forms of evidence apart from visible and testable should be considered I'll notice that he's completely avoided saying what weight they should carry.

They should obviously carry whatever weight they have.

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Should saying that gremlins did it carry equal weight with ballistic evidence in a court of law? Should I tell my boss that I was late to work because my unicorn was sick and not expect to get sacked? Is it a numbers thing? Can I get away with the above if I can find 10 witness who all claim to have seen my sick unicorn? What if I find 30? 100?

All that matters is wether your boss believes your unicorn was sick. Evidence supporting such a belief would be totally unnecessary.

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From Scottish's refusal to answer I guess we'll never know as he's refused explain on which criterion you can dump evidence as coming from a dodgy source or being biased.

My point was that you can't. Not reliably anyway.

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The problem doesn't exist if you only take tangiable evidence in the first place but if Scottish really wants to argue the point he should do more than telling us science is wrong and start telling when and how it's right and when we have to use something else.

Urgh. You're totally missing the point.

If I was arguing from a scientific standpoint, I'd be obliged to provide you with evidence and examples and reasons - but I'm operating outside of science, therefore I'm operating outside of those bounds.

Thus, any scientific minds reading this will see my 'explainations' as senseless, unsupported drivel - because that's what they are, by the scientific definitions of right/wrong/reliable/bull****. Whereas I'm guessing the Fundie element of HLP will see my posts and simply have faith that I'm right.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 23, 2005, 09:13:53 am: Oh and I'm ignoring Aldo's post as it requires too much copy-pasting to get it all in the proper context.

But to summise:

The current questions see to relate to "How are we supposed to judge things if we can't use proof and evidence?". Well, the point I'm trying to make is that you shouldn't bother judging.

Either something is right, or it's not, regardless of all the evidence and proof in the world for/against it.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: phatosealpha on October 23, 2005, 09:15:39 am: *chuckle* How amusing. If you cannot judge, how can anything be right or wrong? Sounds likes you've drained the meaning out of the words already.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 23, 2005, 09:23:34 am: Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
Oh and I'm ignoring Aldo's post as it requires too much copy-pasting to get it all in the proper context.

But to summise:

The current questions see to relate to "How are we supposed to judge things if we can't use proof and evidence?". Well, the point I'm trying to make is that you shouldn't bother judging.

Either something is right, or it's not, regardless of all the evidence and proof in the world for/against it.

So we just take a wild stab in the dark and ignore everything else?

So I can say that you are, in fact, an orange attached to a telephone by electrical cabling in complete confidence that is correct because I think it is? That the best answer is the same as the worst answer?

I mean, that is really moving into Holy Spaghetti Monster territory, surely?

Bearing in mind, of course, that all we (me and kara principally here) have ever describing judging is the observable world. Not the supernatural, unobservable or intangible.

Can you tell me what 'Truth' is? What would you propose as the alternative to the scientific method - or even simple human observation - in understanding the world?

Can you not just ignore the whole copy paste thing (it's quite easy; I just did it before!) and at least reply to something specific in my post? Please?
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 23, 2005, 09:43:19 am: Truth is what is.

Regardless of how you choose what you believe to be true, there will always come a point when your understanding of the universe comes down to the leap of faith.

With Religion, that leap of faith comes as soon as you encounter questions such as "Why?" "How?".

With Science-Vs-Religion, Science comes in and says that leaps of faith are stupid, that you must have tangible evidence and proofs of everything in order for them to be considered Truth (or at least an aspect of it). But it ignores the fact that our senses are subject to the very things which science seeks to investigate and eventually you come to a point where the reliability of the senses becomes so circular and suspect that it's a case of taking a simple leap of faith. Einstein understood that. He also understood that there could be no scientific progress when working within a circular environment, so he simply pinned all the circular variables into a tangible set of forumlae based upon the leap of faith that the speed of light was hard-set into the universe. And then tried to hide what he'd done, because....

In Science-Vs-Religion, Science can't be seen to be taking leaps of faith, or it entirely and fully validates the argument of the Religious and destroys the entire concept upon which the Scientific Argument is based.

But regardless of what either side believes, the Truth is the Truth, wether we can test it, understand it, see it or not.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 23, 2005, 09:49:36 am: Okay, I'm just going to point out that 75 years ago we could not observe an atom. We could not even measure them reliably in an observable manner. We could no even find any proof of them. There was plenty of theory behind thier existence but we could not observe them tangibly or otherwise. The same thing with string theory and multiverse. We cannot see the strings or other universes floating around in the multiverse. Granted they have not been proven yet but why do we give them credence.

Because the math works out and we put a little faith in that if the math works out that must be a valid theory. It may be completely invalid but science puts faith in things that make sense as well as perfectly observable truths.

We moved far beyond observable(touchable or visual) evidence long ago. Now we just work with readings on a sensor.

So all this about science relying only on observable tangible evidence is BS. Read an article about M-Theory. The reason it has been held back is that scientist refused to accept there could be other universes. Now it is commonly held.

We cannot see them, we cannot touch them, hell we cannot observe thier effects. The only evidence that MIGHT be said to show they exist is the evidence that universe collision was what the real big bang was. We may or may no ever be able to create our own universes in the lab and show M-Theory is correct.

We rely on the most reasonable indicator. The math. It works out and thats something that science takes note of.
Anyhow bored again.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 23, 2005, 09:50:06 am: Actually, I've got a better way of putting it:

I'm not arguing against Science or Religion. I'm arguing against metaphysics.

I understand that all our knowledge is based upon observation and it always will be. I understand the inherant danger in simply assuming truths, as Religion does. But I also understand that the Truth is the Truth, regardless of our opinions and that regardless of what the Truth is, we can happily thrive in an environment based upon our perceptions regardless of wether they're Truth or not.

Funny little universe, eh?
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 23, 2005, 09:52:55 am: Okay as to his restated argument. I might agree with that.

We can live the rest of our lives without knowing what the real theory of everything is. This will not harm us.

Actually if all were known life would be boring.

We do base our assumptions correct or not on what we observe or what makes sense to us. This has no real bearing on the truth.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 23, 2005, 09:53:52 am: Now you're getting it.

Truth is Truth. It can't be changed. But if we see False and False works, False is as good as Truth.

Or not, depending on which side you're taking.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 23, 2005, 09:54:47 am: Quote
Originally posted by karajorma
What am I? F**king invisible or something?

I ask questions and never recieve a response. :rolleyes:

Aldo has more sensible posts and as such I sometimes disregard yours. Also alot of times you seem to simply restate aldo and this is another reason I disregard yours.

Anyhow Ta Ta. Or whatever you Brits would say
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 23, 2005, 09:55:31 am: I have other reasons for ignoring him. But I'm not at liberty to discuss them.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 23, 2005, 09:56:59 am: Heh what are they now I wanna know.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 23, 2005, 09:57:37 am: I'll tell you when I've reached....20 posts.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 23, 2005, 09:59:59 am: Okay why 20
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 23, 2005, 10:00:24 am: It's a nice, round number.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 23, 2005, 10:06:05 am: aldo,

I thought I told yall to go out and get a girl yesterday. What are you doing posting on a Saturday night.

Kara,

you said you have one why did you not take her out or something last night. How can you live with yourself if your not taking care of her.

Guys I know this argument is very dear to your hearts but somethings are more important.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 23, 2005, 10:13:04 am: Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
Truth is what is.

Regardless of how you choose what you believe to be true, there will always come a point when your understanding of the universe comes down to the leap of faith.

With Religion, that leap of faith comes as soon as you encounter questions such as "Why?" "How?".

With Science-Vs-Religion, Science comes in and says that leaps of faith are stupid, that you must have tangible evidence and proofs of everything in order for them to be considered Truth (or at least an aspect of it). But it ignores the fact that our senses are subject to the very things which science seeks to investigate and eventually you come to a point where the reliability of the senses becomes so circular and suspect that it's a case of taking a simple leap of faith. Einstein understood that. He also understood that there could be no scientific progress when working within a circular environment, so he simply pinned all the circular variables into a tangible set of forumlae based upon the leap of faith that the speed of light was hard-set into the universe. And then tried to hide what he'd done, because....

In Science-Vs-Religion, Science can't be seen to be taking leaps of faith, or it entirely and fully validates the argument of the Religious and destroys the entire concept upon which the Scientific Argument is based.

But regardless of what either side believes, the Truth is the Truth, wether we can test it, understand it, see it or not.

And what is the 'Truth'

(truth is what is, geddit....ach, nevermind)

I don't see how any of that invalidates the use of science. All it's saying is that some things are not yet known, which is exactly what science says. Science takes leaps of faith; but it doesn't 'stick' with them. Those leaps become hypotheses, which only become scientific theory once tested (assuming they pass that test, of course).

Again, observable universe.

From what I think you're saying, it's essentially that nothing we sense can be trusted to be, well, what we sense it is. That nothing can be discovered, seen, examined, measured, pontificated over, etc and the universe is, will be and must be eternally unknown. That it's not even worth looking because of the very act of looking.

I'd point again no-one has made this into a science-destroys-religion argument. The only conflict between science and religion is when both are trying to explain something we can observe, and religion takes a preconception and tries to fit that to mesh with the observed (see flat earth vs actual spherical earth, for example). But in that case it's religion trying to place an intangible concept like God, within a tangible basis; at which point it enters the realm of the observable and examinable, where it can be contradicted (like the whole pi=3 thing). Now, you can't deny the validity of the observable world because it contradicts with an assumption, surely?

What you've taken is this abstract, unquantified and unstated 'Truth' and provided no basis for it. No explanation of what it is, let along why it should be right. It becomes 'what is', another abstract concept without quantification. How does that help us - humanity - understand the world for what it is, not what we want it to be?

Do you think we should abandon everything we've worked on (scientifically) for the last millenia? Just abandon all the tests we've seen to work, all the correct predictions on what experimental results would be, all the self reinforcing expansions upon theory?

You're on a computer. Well, unless you actually are an electric orange. Anyways, said computer is built upon a myriad of interacting, interconnected scientific theories. Like the simple physics of the base circuit level, or the waveform theories to convert data to analogue, etc. If just one of these theories was wrong, that the correct experimentation upon it was coincidence.... then you wouldn't be able to type and send a post.

Sure, maybe there is some remarkable, gigantic set of coincidences that just somehow makes us able to build this technology and have it work exactly as expected. But it's not the most likely thing, is it? I mean... look at what you see (literally) in front of you, what alternatives are there that are plausible? Why are those better or even equal to the good old 'human endevour and technology' one?

I think you're ignoring the simple mechanics of cause and effect. I think you're saying that they're entirely seperate, coincidental, random, because they provide observable evidence. For no reason beyond that the evidence is observable. To me that's a very strange attitude; to regard what we see as the same as everything we do not see (for whatever reason, whether it even exists to be seen at a point, or can never be seen but does exist, or simply doesn't exist).

Is it a leap of faith to say 'my eyes show me the world'? Is it any more a leap of faith than saying 'I exist'? Is it not true because we see it? Is it true if we don't see it? Is truth in fact invisible, because you deny the 'truth' of the visible? Because we're not dealing with what exists, or what may exist, but what we know exists and why we know. Because we see it; and the only other alternative is, what, to close our eyes and guess what's sitting in front of us?

I'd say that's the worst possible alternative.

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Originally posted by Scottish
Actually, I've got a better way of putting it:

I'm not arguing against Science or Religion. I'm arguing against metaphysics.

I understand that all our knowledge is based upon observation and it always will be. I understand the inherant danger in simply assuming truths, as Religion does. But I also understand that the Truth is the Truth, regardless of our opinions and that regardless of what the Truth is, we can happily thrive in an environment based upon our perceptions regardless of wether they're Truth or not.

Funny little universe, eh?

(eep. Problems of writing long posts, eh?)

Um... metaphysics doesn't assume stuff; it postulates it, and then says what experiments can/should be carried out (or whether they can't at present), but it doesn't assume the actual result of those experiments when they cannot be currently performed.

It's not like blindly assuming String Theory is true, for example. It's a case of 'we think this would be an explanation' and then trying to work out how to test that, and soforth.

Although isn't the very idea of 'Truth' something that exists by your own perception? You think there's some 'Truth', but it doesn't mean there is. At least, from what I take your meaning of 'Truth' to be. So you're saying that perceptions are wrong and the 'Truth' is right, but we don't actually know or have any way of even knowing if there is any such thing as the 'Truth', nor any reason why it is right and perceptions would not be?

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Originally posted by Osiri
aldo,

I thought I told yall to go out and get a girl yesterday. What are you doing posting on a Saturday night.

It's Sunday afternoon. I'm watching the football. Chelsea vs Everton on Sky.

In any case, my personal life is my own, and it's not your little plaything for snide insults or insinuations.

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Originally posted by Osiri
Aldo has more sensible posts and as such I sometimes disregard yours. Also alot of times you seem to simply restate aldo and this is another reason I disregard yours.

Um, we just agree on stuff. Kara is a far, far more eloquent 'speaker' than me in this sort of thread, and I'd say he's asking the more pertinent questions here. Which would make them the harder questions........
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 23, 2005, 10:15:40 am: Aldo

Why do you choose the least sensical of his posts to quote. You disregarded his restated argument to attack his older ones.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 23, 2005, 10:15:44 am: I essence, what I'm saying is: Know your limits. Because your 'Truth' is subject to them.

And he's quoting that one because he's going sequentially through the thread. Presumably.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 23, 2005, 10:17:35 am: Ahhhhhhh okay, I usually read everything I miss before I respond. It saves me some mistakes and gives the other person a fair chance to agrue his point.

If nothing else at least skim through and then attack them one by one.

Edit: Admittedly this can be a pain in the neck if you don't read up for a while.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 23, 2005, 10:24:55 am: Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
Aldo

Why do you choose the least sensical of his posts to quote. You disregarded his restated argument to attack his older ones.

Because it took a ****ing age to write it, and a meta conversation sprung up in the middle :D

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Originally posted by Scottish
I essence, what I'm saying is: Know your limits. Because your 'Truth' is subject to them.

I think you're misunderstanding how we set or view our 'limits', and thinking that we (we? mmm...probably correct) are dealing in some sort of absolucy.

So what do you think we are ragarding our 'limits' as?
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 23, 2005, 10:27:27 am: You're not.

You're assuming that evidence leads to Truth. You see that as a path, not a limit.

Truth could be hiding in a place to which no evidence leads. Metaphysics being a prime example. It doesn't follow what you'd consider a path, it just swings wildly through possibility in search of the truth. It's only 'evidence' is in the implications of the limits of human understanding - which is more than a little paradoxical.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 23, 2005, 10:29:14 am: Really, he is far more eloquent. I will have to go back and analyze his questions a little better. They did not seem to be very difficult questions hang on.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 23, 2005, 10:35:34 am: Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
You're not.

You're assuming that evidence leads to Truth. You see that as a path, not a limit.

Truth could be hiding in a place to which no evidence leads. Metaphysics being a prime example. It doesn't follow what you'd consider a path, it just swings wildly through possibility in search of the truth. It's only 'evidence' is in the implications of the limits of human understanding - which is more than a little paradoxical.

I don't believe in the concept of 'truth' you're referring to, though. Not this absolute sense of the intangible universe. I don't think it's a universal concept, either, but a personal one.

I think you're assuming I'm referring to truth (well, by translation of that concept to what I've been saying) as the universal answer to everything. But I've been referring to it in the sense of 'what we know', where the context is that it's what we can know, with the further qualification that what we can know is limited by observability and how we can observe. i.e. answers. Good answers; not infallible, flawless answers but ones that we can trust to the degree of what we know that supports them.

From what I can tell, your usage of 'Truth' refers to some abstract concept which I don't think (would?) even exist to be discovered. Although if it did, some could say it lies within the search rather than the solution (if we're delving towards personal philosophy).

Oh, and
Truth = 42.

:D
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 23, 2005, 10:39:37 am: Truth is Truth (and 42).

If a rock is there, the rock is there.

If I see a rock, it might not be there.

If I believe the rock is there, and it is, I know Truth.

If I believe the rock is there, and it isn't, I'm just wrong.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 23, 2005, 10:49:46 am: Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
Truth is Truth (and 42).

If a rock is there, the rock is there.

If I see a rock, it might not be there.

If I believe the rock is there, and it is, I know Truth.

If I believe the rock is there, and it isn't, I'm just wrong.

But, within that context we can never know anything to any degree, ever. Which is not a very good starting point, IMO. because it means there is no point in doing anything. So I picked, personally, the best solution;

I see/feel the rock; within the concept of my environment, it is there.

If the rock is not there, then my environmental concept is wrong, but it's a consistent error across the concept.

Thus my environmental concept is my best way of understanding the environment.

Technically, you can abstract everything to be an illusion (is that Zen?). But whilst that states our view is an assumption, the abstraction concept is also an assumption of a different sort. Now, to me an assumption (that we see the world) is better and more reliable than an assumption built upon an assumption.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 23, 2005, 10:51:20 am: Okay I have reread one of Kara's earlier posts. The jist of it was that I should not talk because I have been trained as a lawyer and not a scientist. This is BS. I was trained as a scientist and then became a lawyer. Besides, I was not refering only to scientific arguments. This is not a scientific argument. If it were we would each go out and research each others arguments and come running back with empirical data before we spoke again. That is true scientific argument. Even if we don't run out and grab new studies and such we would not just state opinion. We would state facts for those opinion.

Further, he went on to discuss devil's advocate. Just because you are a devil's advocate does not mean there is no value your argument. Devil's advocate simply means you do not believe in the side your arguing for. This does not mean specifically that there is no merit.

I hate to drag out this example again but if you support M-Theory there is a completely meritorious agrument against it. There are weaknesses and strengths for both sides. As such, there is no "correct" side to argue. Hence, by your argument, you could not argue both sides or any side for that matter until there was known to be a correct answer. This is a unrealistic view.

Take for example, the debate of aldo and I over what funding should go toward in space exploration. We both have completely valid points of view. I believed it should go to space elevator and to probes. He thinks it should all go to toward the probes because he does not believe the Space elevator is a valid project as yet. I could devil's advocate for his side and he could do the same for mine. This does not mean that either side is invalid just that we would not believe in what we are arguing.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 23, 2005, 10:55:31 am: I'm not trying to 'win' here, BTW. I'm just trying to get you [aldo] to think.

As it is, taking your environment to be a construct of the mind, while acknowledging that it can be both entirely wrong, but work anyways - was all I was trying to get you to do. So I'm done.

Now all you've got to do is bear these things in mind when you're deciding things in future, and find a way to apply them to your life.

And remember that just because something looks like a rock, it doesn't mean it stops being a very aggressive turtle with a taste for fingers.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 23, 2005, 11:12:19 am: Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
Okay I have reread one of Kara's earlier posts. The jist of it was that I should not talk because I have been trained as a lawyer and not a scientist. This is BS. I was trained as a scientist and then became a lawyer. Besides, I was not refering only to scientific arguments. This is not a scientific argument. If it were we would each go out and research each others arguments and come running back with empirical data before we spoke again. That is true scientific argument. Even if we don't run out and grab new studies and such we would not just state opinion. We would state facts for those opinion.

Further, he went on to discuss devil's advocate. Just because you are a devil's advocate does not mean there is no value your argument. Devil's advocate simply means you do not believe in the side your arguing for. This does not mean specifically that there is no merit.

I hate to drag out this example again but if you support M-Theory there is a completely meritorious agrument against it. There are weaknesses and strengths for both sides. As such, there is no "correct" side to argue. Hence, by your argument, you could not argue both sides or any side for that matter until there was known to be a correct answer. This is a unrealistic view.

Actually, kara was saying that as a lawyer you are trained to argue for a point rather than evidenciary basis, and that whilst a proper scientific arguement should acknowledge weakness, a lawyer probably should never, ever do that because of the adversarial nature of law.

The Devils Advocate thing was citing that; namely that the person who would be best able to argue for an inverse point of view to their own would be a lawyer; that we associate lawyers with an ability to argue for a converse or 'losing' side such as within the legal context.

Although about m-theory... that was never the arguement. It was always over a factural versus non factual arguement, where a non-factual arguement used tactics of omission. So I think you've misunderstood kara quite a bit there.

Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
I'm not trying to 'win' here, BTW. I'm just trying to get you [aldo] to think.

As it is, taking your environment to be a construct of the mind, while acknowledging that it can be both entirely wrong, but work anyways - was all I was trying to get you to do. So I'm done.

Now all you've got to do is bear these things in mind when you're deciding things in future, and find a way to apply them to your life.

And remember that just because something looks like a rock, it doesn't mean it stops being a very aggressive turtle with a taste for fingers.

But I do, you see. Always did (just see any of the big debates on 'science kills religion'; i'm an aetheist, but I've never regarded religion as something that can be 'destroyed' by the observable world because of its nature).

Simply by understanding exactly what I'm doing, and why a fact is considered a fact, a theory a theory, etc. So don't think I omit this consideration; it's just one I consider useless because it's insurmountable. If the world doesn't exist as we see it, we'll never know. And soforth. And that scientific, empirical observation is the best way of understanding that world we see (hence the repeated use of observable world), and what lies outside of that has to be disregarded within that empirical sense, as it is forever unknown.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 23, 2005, 11:21:56 am: Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
They should obviously carry whatever weight they have.

That's a brilliant non-answer. If you aren't allowed to just use scientific principles to determine the weight how the hell are you calculating the weight in the first place. If a defendant in a trial says God stabbed the victim and he was just a witness how do you determine the weight that statement should have?

Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
All that matters is wether your boss believes your unicorn was sick. Evidence supporting such a belief would be totally unnecessary.

But how would I determine the likelyhood of the boss believing me before I say it? If you're going to tell a lie determining the likelyhood of it being viewed as truthful is of vital importance. You've yet to give me any explaination of a time when the boss could be expected to not just look at it scientifically and tell you to clear your desk.

Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
My point was that you can't. Not reliably anyway..

You previously said that you could in order to refute an earlier point.

In fact now I've looked back you've pretty much said the exact opposite of what you're saying now.

Quote
The 'weight' of any evidence should be completely seperate from the matter of it's associated implications. It's 'weight' should be based entirely on observable reliability and truth.

Not the small t in truth and your insistance that observaable reality was the main criterion on which the weight should be assigned. Unless you meant to use a capital t that's a complete 180 from your current argument.

Furthermore

Quote
So it's entirely reasonable to disregard 'evidence' which supports an opposing viewpoint if it's source if questionable or is the source is biased. So, once again, no omission is required. You simply undermine it's credibility by finding flaws in the source and the source's reliability.

How are you able to do any of that if you're now claiming that there is no reliable way to determine the questionablility of the source? If there is no way determine the reliablity of a source as you now claim my earlier comment to which this was the reply was correct.

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Originally posted by Scottish
If I was arguing from a scientific standpoint, I'd be obliged to provide you with evidence and examples and reasons - but I'm operating outside of science, therefore I'm operating outside of those bounds.

Thus, any scientific minds reading this will see my 'explainations' as senseless, unsupported drivel - because that's what they are, by the scientific definitions of right/wrong/reliable/bull****. Whereas I'm guessing the Fundie element of HLP will see my posts and simply have faith that I'm right.

The problem is not whether your argument is scientific or not. The problem is that you haven't set any boundries at all. No one can debate against you because you've refused to set out the stall on what your opinion actually is.

If you'd said "I believe in science but I believe that XYZ are due to God" then you'd have a point that can be debated against. But you haven't done that. You've answered my pertinant questions about that sort of thing with non-answers like the one you gave above.

If I ask why is the sky blue and you answer with "Cause God likes blue" you have a discussion point. We can question the existance of God or whether the bible points out that he actually likes red better.
If you simply say "Cause it's blue" you haven't answered the question and you haven't actually posted anything worth the time it took you to write it.

That's why the answer at the top of this page is invalid. I asked you how you determine the weight of something and you said the eqivalent of "Write down the weight it has". That is simply not an answer.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Janos on October 23, 2005, 11:24:44 am: Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
Okay, I'm just going to point out that 75 years ago we could not observe an atom. We could not even measure them reliably in an observable manner. We could no even find any proof of them. There was plenty of theory behind thier existence but we could not observe them tangibly or otherwise. The same thing with string theory and multiverse. We cannot see the strings or other universes floating around in the multiverse. Granted they have not been proven yet but why do we give them credence.

Rutherford and Perrin are kinda disagreeing with your atom statement.

Quote

We moved far beyond observable(touchable or visual) evidence long ago. Now we just work with readings on a sensor.

Are they any different?
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 23, 2005, 11:31:36 am: Quote
Originally posted by karajorma
That's a brilliant non-answer. If you aren't allowed to just use scientific principles to determine the weight how the hell are you calculating the weight in the first place. If a defendant in a trial says God stabbed the victim and he was just a witness how do you determine the weight that statement should have?

It carries the weight of your belief in his honesty.

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But how would I determine the likelyhood of the boss believing me before I say it? If you're going to tell a lie determining the likelyhood of it being viewed as truthful is of vital importance. You've yet to give me any explaination of a time when the boss could be expected to not just look at it scientifically and tell you to clear your desk.

You're looking at it all wrong. Or right, depending on your perspective.

This isn't a real-life thing, it's an analogy. So the Boss would be thinking non-Scientifically. Which brings into question the functionality of the analogy, but it doesn't need functionality because it's a metaphor with a somewhat restricted focus.

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You previously said that you could in order to refute an earlier point.

In fact now I've looked back you've pretty much said the exact opposite of what you're saying now.

Yes, because I was arguing within a smaller scope before.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 23, 2005, 11:35:53 am: Quote
Originally posted by Janos

Rutherford and Perrin are kinda disagreeing with your atom statement.

Pity it's taking me so long to read and reply to this topic. That's exactly what I was about to say. :D
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 23, 2005, 11:43:39 am: Aldo,

Lawyers always argue on a evidenciary basis and have to acknowledge the weakness of our argument. Lawyer's who do not acknowledge weakness in argument or who disregard factual evidence lose or get disbarred. Even in an adversarial system we cannot commit fraud. This is a misconception on your part that I cannot explain. Why do you think that a trial court is a court of fact.

As to the devil's advocate discussion anyone is qualified to be a devil's advocate. I do not have to be a lawyer to argue for both sides. I have successfully argued for a communist system of government and several other things that I am completely against. This was well before I became a lawyer. In fact it was when I was a computer scientist.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 23, 2005, 11:44:59 am: Oops was I off on my dates as to the atom statment. Oh ya, huh the point is valid. The time is off. Sorry for the oversight. But my point was they had evidence of its existence but no direct proof. Direct proof being more than the effects of it.

There is a difference between readings on a sensor and touch and visual. One you are not seeing and experiencing the other you are. The former is just a reading which you interpret to be something.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 23, 2005, 11:45:16 am: Lawyers acknowledge all evidence, but argue of it's implications.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 23, 2005, 11:47:11 am: Pity it took me that long too. I would have corrected myself long ago but I was dressing to go have fun again.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 23, 2005, 11:48:56 am: Scottish is right to a point. Lawyers supposedly acknowledge all valid evidence and then argue its implications, validity and pertinence. Supposedly only because some lawyers do not. These are bad lawyers.

BAD BAD BAD YOU FORFEIT YOUR FEE, GET SUED, LOSE YOUR LICENSE, ETC. BAD....
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 23, 2005, 11:50:14 am: Jack Thompson bad.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 23, 2005, 12:02:08 pm: Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
The current questions see to relate to "How are we supposed to judge things if we can't use proof and evidence?". Well, the point I'm trying to make is that you shouldn't bother judging.

You may like to claim there are other answers but the fact is that you make a large percentage of your daily choices based on a much simplified version of the scientific method. You choose what to eat based on empirical evidence of what you've tried before and liked. You drink water rather than bleach because you are aware of what happens to people who drink liquids with a skull and crossbones on them.

I doubt very much that you wait for the Truth to explain to you gray skies mean you should take your coat out cause it might rain.

The scientific method amounts to little more that that sort of thing with a few extra rules handling how you decide what is drinkable (maybe the milk was bad rather than all milk tasting like that) and how you formulate rules on what else you might not like (I've not liked anything with tomatoes in so far in my life. So lets take it that I don't actually like tomatoes as a theory. Bite into a tomato. Yep. That was the taste I didn't like).

It's not an artificial construct. It's simply a more refined version of what we all do anyway. If you want to claim that the scientific method is flawed that you also have to decry the version of it you're using in your everyday life and sit rigidly still where ever you are till you die.

Well you're welcome to sit through the rest of life like a lemon because you're unable to make any choice on anything because it could be wrong but I doubt you'll have many converts. Not for longer than the week it will take you to die of dehydration at least.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 23, 2005, 12:03:50 pm: If I see rain, I still have to believe it's raining.

And for all you know, I love bleach on toast.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 23, 2005, 12:23:10 pm: Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
Kara,

you said you have one why did you not take her out or something last night. How can you live with yourself if your not taking care of her.

Guys I know this argument is very dear to your hearts but somethings are more important.

Osiri. I'll thank you kindly to not make any further comments on my personal life. You do not know me. You do not know how I spend my time.

I find your attempts to tell me how to live my life arrogant and insulting. You have spent just as much time on this argument as I have and spent more on the other one from which you claimed to know me so lets not get into a pissing match over who is wasting more time online.

I will take any further attempts to insult me or offer me stupid, ill-thought out advice on my love life as an indication that you lack the brains to argue on the points under discussion.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 23, 2005, 01:11:07 pm: Quote
Originally posted by aldo_14
Um, we just agree on stuff. Kara is a far, far more eloquent 'speaker' than me in this sort of thread, and I'd say he's asking the more pertinent questions here. Which would make them the harder questions........

Nicest thing anyone has said about me all week but don't be falsely modest :)

Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
Okay I have reread one of Kara's earlier posts. The jist of it was that I should not talk because I have been trained as a lawyer and not a scientist.

Incorrect. My whole issue was with your presumption in claiming that you knew what was going on in my head. You do not. The fact that you've made repeated errors by trying to act as if you did with respect to my social life should be proof enough of that.

My comments about lawyers were based on the fact that a lawyer may frequently have to defend an opinion that he knows is wrong or defend a client he knows is guilty. A scientist on the other hand does not do that. A scientist does not publish papers in favour of a hypothesis he can find no evidence for or if the evidence supports an alternate hypothesis or theory.

You claimed that everyone discusses matters like a lawyer. I said that some of us (like Aldo and myself) prefer to discuss matters like a scientist and so you were wrong. Instead of conceeding the point you then proceeded to attempt to tell me that I argued in the lawyer fashion despite my repeatedly saying I did not and presenting evidence to prove that.

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Originally posted by Osiri
This is not a scientific argument.

Wrong. That was your postulate at the start of the discussion not a declaration of terms on which the argument would be based. My entire position throughout our debate has been that I argue any non-emtion based position on scientific terms. The fact that you have noticed that and are trying to say that this is not the type of argument we are having pretty strongly supports my original position that I do not argue except in the scientific manner.

Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
Further, he went on to discuss devil's advocate. Just because you are a devil's advocate does not mean there is no value your argument. Devil's advocate simply means you do not believe in the side your arguing for. This does not mean specifically that there is no merit.

Again you have misunderstood my point.

If you don't believe in a side of an argument it is because you believe that there is a flaw in the argument. How else could you not believe in it? Whether you are wrong and there is merit in the argument is another matter completely and completely irrelavent to the point I was making.
It doesn't matter if there is merit or not in the argument. All that matters is that you believe it is wrong. Now a lawyer can quite happily do that but only a certain kind of scientist (Corporate shills for the smoking companies for instance) will do that. I'm not saying that lawyers shouldn't support a cause they don't believe in. That's their whole raison d'etre but the converse is true for a scientist. A scientist shouldn't publish papers in support of one hypothesis when he personally believes another is correct because all the data points to it. That is why scientists who do support theories that contradict all the available evidence are so universally reviled (again the scumbags who kept publishing research that smoking was fine and didn't cause cancer).

That and only that is the point I was trying to make with the devils advocate comment. For someone who argues from a scientific standpoint the whole time playing devil's advocate is difficult because I will always end up being honest and pointing out the weakpoints in the argument I know are there.
Considering you'd said that you always try to downplay the weakpoints in your argument I was using this to point out that for someone like me this is evidence of exactly the opposite point of view.

You got all caught up in whether a devil's advocate had any validity in his case at all and missed the point I actually was making.

Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
It carries the weight of your belief in his honesty.

You'd let a hell of a lot of conmen walk out scot free if that was the sole criterion you judged these things on. Mad people too seeing as they absolutely believe what they are saying. If you were using a scientific basis for the matter you could simply say "God doesn't exist" or even "God exists but I don't think he'd create an avatar just to stab that guy" but if all you're relying on is the believablility of the witness then you're stuffed if the witness is a good liar.

And what do you do if you're reading a book or watching a TV show where you can't see the person directly responsible or establish his believability directly?

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Originally posted by Scottish
Yes, because I was arguing within a smaller scope before.

Sorry but that simply doesn't cut it with me. There is a clear chain of question and response between your original statement and your final response. You can't simply claim that the scope of your argument has changed.
If your scope has changed you did so without telling me and without answering the question I had originally put to you. So I'll restate the original question and you can answer it within the same scope as which I originally put it to you.

In response to this

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If you gave equal weight to evidence that supported an opposing point of view you wouldn't be downplaying it now would you?

You said this

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So it's entirely reasonable to disregard 'evidence' which supports an opposing viewpoint if it's source if questionable or is the source is biased. So, once again, no omission is required. You simply undermine it's credibility by finding flaws in the source and the source's reliability.

Staying within the scope of your original answer can you tell me under which conditions you discard evidence?

Cause when I attempted to say that you'd use a scientific method you claimed you couldn't so I'd like to know which method you could use to disregard evidence. I know you must have believed that there was one seeing as how it was the reason you actually started posting on this thread.

Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
If I see rain, I still have to believe it's raining.

Why? How is that not a scientific deduction? You could be hallucinating. You could be dreaming.

Besides I said if you see gray skies not actual rain which implies a chain of logic is necessary.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Osiri on October 23, 2005, 02:47:28 pm: As far as any comments about personal life you must understand that those were mere jokes. I am sure that you went out and partied and had loads of fun with your girls. I know I have and I am merely trying to get you to say you have too. I will discontinue this line of jokes as you do not seem to see the humor.

As far as any argument I like how you are able to set limits and do not allow me to have no limits. My original post was that we do what I was talking about in life. I did say anything about it being in a non-emotional purely scientific non-bias discussion. That is a contradicition. You cannot tell me I am wrong in my post and then narrow the scope of the argument to something that I would agree with you. A lawyer is completely neutral in a office memo. We have to make both sides out for our senior attorney's to know what is going on. This is when we do not skew the argument in the slightest. We give both the strengths and the weaknesses. So in that context I would completely agree with both of you..... If I limited it to that context.

If my original postulate dealt with any narrowed scope it would have been politics not science. Thus your rebuttal is flawed. You cannot narrow or change the scope of my original postulate to make something better for you. This is misrepresenting my original statement.

If your wondering here is my original statement. Please read it this time.
_______________________________________________

You know when I first read this I almost wrote a feature length article for this website talking about all the ways I agreed with his statements and about how certain politicians do this all the time(Cough George Bush) (Cough other fundamentalist conservative names).

But you know what, I suddenly realized that I was doing what he was talking about. (I hadn't started writing but was about to) I was citing in my head all the different times I have watched my beloved president muddle through a speech citing the most ridiculous sources and disregarding any time I have heard him cite valid sources and speak intelligibly(Okay barely but he's a chimp. What do you expect. Yall have intelligent leaders right. )

The point is we all do this constantly because it is the way arguments are made. You put forward your support while citing but downplaying those sources against you.
__________________________________________________

As you can see there is nothing there about science. I have read the first 6 or 7 of my posts(my original postulate) and found nothing of science. It all dealt with life in general.

Thus, do not narrow my argument for me I can do an adequate job myself.

Further this narrowing for me is a lawyerly tactic not a scientific one.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 23, 2005, 03:03:27 pm: Quote
Originally posted by karajorma
Sorry but that simply doesn't cut it with me. There is a clear chain of question and response between your original statement and your final response.

Yes a clear chain that moves slowly from a discussion of the reliability of evidence within the Scientific Method, to a discussion on the inherant weaknesses of the Scientific Method and the belief that it is all-knowing and all-seeing.

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You can't simply claim that the scope of your argument has changed.

Of course I can.

For starters, I can just lie. Or I could - God forbid - simply be stating a fact.

I remember why I declared Vendetta against you now. You're like a little badger when someone trys to show you you're wrong, reading volumes of subtext in innocuous little comments and jibes - seeing vipers at every turn, snapping at you in the dark - and attacking everything that moves with such ferocity you ignore even basic concepts and ideas because at first glance they appear wrong and bad and nasty and icky.

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Staying within the scope of your original answer can you tell me under which conditions you discard evidence?

I wouldn't 'discard' any evidence.

If I was searching for Truth, I'd disregard anything which seemed to be unsubstantiated and shape my views according to the evidence and theories available - regardless of what my original belief was. A mix of science and speculative belief.

If I was supporting a belief which was right, I'd have no need to disregard any evidence, as it would all support my belief.

If I was mindlessly defending a belief in spite of all evidence, I'd disregard evidence on the basis of it's threat to my belief. The larger the threat, the further back in it's chain of conception I'd go to find flaws and to undermine the implications of it's existence.

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Cause when I attempted to say that you'd use a scientific method you claimed you couldn't so I'd like to know which method you could use to disregard evidence. I know you must have believed that there was one seeing as how it was the reason you actually started posting on this thread.

And that, deary, would be where the discussion changed.

I went from specualting on hypotheticals to expressing my beliefs. Missed that, did you?
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 23, 2005, 05:57:03 pm: Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
As far as any comments about personal life you must understand that those were mere jokes. I am sure that you went out and partied and had loads of fun with your girls. I know I have and I am merely trying to get you to say you have too. I will discontinue this line of jokes as you do not seem to see the humor.

As far as any argument I like how you are able to set limits and do not allow me to have no limits. My original post was that we do what I was talking about in life. I did say anything about it being in a non-emotional purely scientific non-bias discussion. That is a contradicition. You cannot tell me I am wrong in my post and then narrow the scope of the argument to something that I would agree with you. A lawyer is completely neutral in a office memo. We have to make both sides out for our senior attorney's to know what is going on. This is when we do not skew the argument in the slightest. We give both the strengths and the weaknesses. So in that context I would completely agree with both of you..... If I limited it to that context.

The limits of the discussion were set in Tin Can's original post. (Anyone remember that? )

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after watching more news in my Engineering Graphics Class, something hit me about how politics are discussed these days, as opposed to the past

If you choose to widen the scope from that of the original poster too all discussions then that's your mistake not mine.

Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
If my original postulate dealt with any narrowed scope it would have been politics not science. Thus your rebuttal is flawed. You cannot narrow or change the scope of my original postulate to make something better for you. This is misrepresenting my original statement.

You really need to stop using that word because it has always been followed by a misunderstanding of my comments and I'm starting to get annoyed with your insistance of malice when it is actually your lack of understanding that is at fault here.
If you don't understand me have the f**king courtesy to ask for an explaination instead of assuming I'm doing it deliberately to misrepresent you.

You want to explain to me why politics is an emotional subject that can be dealt with in terms of likes and dislikes? It's not universally so. I happen to choose which political points of view I side with based on logic not which politicians annoy me.

As for the science aspect you have yet again misunderstood me. My point (and I am getting so sick of having to explain everything 3 or 4 times to you before you stand a chance of understanding it) is that I will argue the point in a scientific manner even if it is a political point. I didn't attempt to make this a discussion of the scientific method. I simply pointed out that I use it in discussions. Your claim that I narrowed the scope to science is as foolish as saying that I narrowed it to computing because my keyboard is also a tool I use in discussions on the internet just like I use the scientific method. My intent was always to discuss politics.

Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
As you can see there is nothing there about science. I have read the first 6 or 7 of my posts(my original postulate) and found nothing of science. It all dealt with life in general.

Thus, do not narrow my argument for me I can do an adequate job myself.

In case you haven't noticed it was actually Scottish who brought up the subject of science. You ought to have read further instead of asuming that the science bent of the argument was my fault. Once again you've failed to do your research and gotten the wrong answer because of it.

I continued to debate you on politics and the issue of you claiming to know how my brain worked with reference to political debate for several posts after that.

In fact feel free to search the thread and find a single point where I debate with you about the validity of the scientific method. I just did and there just isn't one. All my comments on the method were to state that this was how I approached political discussions. Although I may have argued with Scottish about it every single responce I have made to you has been on topic.

Quote
Originally posted by Osiri
Further this narrowing for me is a lawyerly tactic not a scientific one.

Which is why I've pointed out that I did not narrow the topic in the slightest. You widened it to include non-political arguments. If you want to go back to the actual topic of the thread and re-read it you'll find you've just been proven conclusively wrong on almost every point.

Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
Of course I can.

No you can't. I asked you to explain a point within the original scope with which you stated it. Instead you answered it within a different wider scope thereby avoiding answering the question. You can't do that and still claim you answered the question. It's just being evasive in order to avoid having to answer a question you don't like.

Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
I remember why I declared Vendetta against you now. You're like a little badger when someone trys to show you you're wrong, reading volumes of subtext in innocuous little comments and jibes - seeing vipers at every turn, snapping at you in the dark - and attacking everything that moves with such ferocity you ignore even basic concepts and ideas because at first glance they appear wrong and bad and nasty and icky.

Oooohhh. Insults and threats now. :lol: I've been insulted and threaten by better men than you (And I don't mean Osiri either :p) so pardon me if I don't feel the need to quake in my boots over this one.

If you can't avoid insults and threats I'd suggest that you go find somewhere quite to lie down until you can discuss this matter like a rational adult.

Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
And that, deary, would be where the discussion changed.

I went from specualting on hypotheticals to expressing my beliefs. Missed that, did you?

I didn't miss it. I considered it completely irrelavent to my original question. That is not the same thing. Which is why I asked you the question again in terms you couldn't get confused about.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 23, 2005, 06:13:31 pm: Quote
Originally posted by Scottish

Yes a clear chain that moves slowly from a discussion of the reliability of evidence within the Scientific Method, to a discussion on the inherant weaknesses of the Scientific Method and the belief that it is all-knowing and all-seeing.

?

Both myself and Kara have taken great pains to explain there is no presumption that science is 'all knowing' or 'all seeing' in those terms, and upon the whole fundamental issue of the observable universe. That science is based on visible, observable evidence and that we use the known evidence to determine an opinion; citing not only the supporting evidence but also accounting for our (usually empirical based) reasoning for giving a lesser value for conflicting 'evidence' if such exists (because this evidence can be fabricated or misconstrued as often seen in, for example, the creationism vs evolution debate, which is why it is 'rejected' or approportioned less importance).

AFAIK you're pointing out the weakness of the Scientific Method with regard to something which is was never designed, intended to or even used to examine; the supernatural-stroke-intangible-stroke-inobservable guesswork universe, whose existence or otherwise is a purely personal construct.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 23, 2005, 06:52:09 pm: Quote
Originally posted by karajorma
No you can't. I asked you to explain a point within the original scope with which you stated it. Instead you answered it within a different wider scope thereby avoiding answering the question.

Because your understanding of the scope being used couldn't possibly differ from the intended scope.

Quote
You can't do that and still claim you answered the question. It's just being evasive in order to avoid having to answer a question you don't like.

Or a question I don't understand, because as far as I can see I've already stated the answer about 400 times in one form or another.

I work in a flow. If you try to drag me back to a previous place in the flow, chances are I'll have completely lost the momentum of the moment.

Far as I can see, either you misunderstood the original intent of whatever the **** I said, or your quoting is losing something of the context of it to the point where I can't remember what the **** I was talking about when I was talking about it.

Quote
Oooohhh. Insults and threats now. :lol: I've been insulted and threaten by better men than you (And I don't mean Osiri either :p) so pardon me if I don't feel the need to quake in my boots over this one.

I was simply stating an observation.

Quote
If you can't avoid insults and threats I'd suggest that you go find somewhere quite to lie down until you can discuss this matter like a rational adult.

Where, exactly, did I threaten you?

It's not even an insult really. More a critique of your flaws.

But in the spirit of the thread, I must say that you've got excellent spelling and lovely.....err....eyes?

Quote
I didn't miss it. I considered it completely irrelavent to my original question. That is not the same thing. Which is why I asked you the question again in terms you couldn't get confused about.

You shouldn't discard evidence. Only devalue it's worth before assigning it a place in the great context.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 23, 2005, 06:53:38 pm: Quote
Originally posted by aldo_14
Both myself and Kara have taken great pains to explain there is no presumption that science is 'all knowing' or 'all seeing' in those terms, and upon the whole fundamental issue of the observable universe.

AFAIK you're pointing out the weakness of the Scientific Method with regard to something which is was never designed, intended to or even used to examine; the supernatural-stroke-intangible-stroke-inobservable guesswork universe, whose existence or otherwise is a purely personal construct.

Exactly.

Well, not exactly but close enough that I don't feel like nit-picking.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 23, 2005, 07:27:15 pm: Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
Because your understanding of the scope being used couldn't possibly differ from the intended scope.

:wtf: What the hell are you on about?

Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
Or a question I don't understand, because as far as I can see I've already stated the answer about 400 times in one form or another.

I work in a flow. If you try to drag me back to a previous place in the flow, chances are I'll have completely lost the momentum of the moment.

Then maybe you should have answered the question when I originally proposed it.

Besides which the fact that you can't come back to an argument and present the same response is one of the reasons I prefer to rely on the scientific method rather than the hodge-podge of beliefs that you use.

Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
Far as I can see, either you misunderstood the original intent of whatever the **** I said, or your quoting is losing something of the context of it to the point where I can't remember what the **** I was talking about when I was talking about it.

Then go back and re-read the original postings. It's not like they've been lost in the mists of time you know.

Anyway I've got the answer I wanted now from your last response. I simply took issue with your insults and claims that you can change the scope of a question to suit your own purposes.

Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
I was simply stating an observation.

Observation my aching arse. At least have the balls to stand up and admit you were being insulting rather than slinking away with an obvious lie.

Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
Where, exactly, did I threaten you?

ven·det·ta Audio pronunciation of "vendetta" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (vn-dt)
n.

1. A feud between two families or clans that arises out of a slaying and is perpetuated by retaliatory acts of revenge; a blood feud.
2. A bitter, destructive feud.

Try to at least understand the meaning of the words you use m'kay?

Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
It's not even an insult really. More a critique of your flaws.

Yeah right. Like I'm going to fall for that one. See the comment about your lack of testicles above.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 23, 2005, 07:44:02 pm: Quote
Originally posted by karajorma
What the hell are you on about?

Your idea of an answer is not necessarily the same as mine.

Quote
Then maybe you should have answered the question when I originally proposed it.

I would've but I was ignoring you.

Quote
Besides which the fact that you can't come back to an argument and present the same response is one of the reasons I prefer to rely on the scientific method rather than the hodge-podge of beliefs that you use.

Just because someone can write a novel doesn't mean they can spontaneously conjour up a random paragraph from half-way through a story they wrote decades ago.

Quote
Anyway I've got the answer I wanted now from your last response. I simply took issue with your insults and claims that you can change the scope of a question to suit your own purposes.

I can do as I please.

I'll change the scope, ignore evidence, ignore entire arguments if it suits me to do so.

Which, incidentally, is what the original argument was about in the first place.

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Try to at least understand the meaning of the words you use m'kay?

I understand it perfectly. But you seem to be having trouble grasping my usage of it.

I dislike you, but that doesn't mean I'm attacking you. At least, not in the way you think.

Granted that's because I've been ****ing with you, but still....

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Yeah right. Like I'm going to fall for that one. See the comment about your lack of testicles above.

See my comment about 'vipers in the dark'.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 23, 2005, 07:55:56 pm: Quote
Originally posted by Scottish
I would've but I was ignoring you.

Good. Stick me on ignore and do it permanently. I really couldn't give a toss whether you ignore me or not. But if you cherry pick what you want to answer it only means that you lack either the intellect or the bravery to discuss the matter properly.

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Originally posted by Scottish
Just because someone can write a novel doesn't mean they can spontaneously conjour up a random paragraph from half-way through a story they wrote decades ago.

If you have the novel in front of you and the option to do a keyword search on it and still can't it means you are lazy or points to some other drastic flaw.

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Originally posted by Scottish
I'll change the scope, ignore evidence, ignore entire arguments if it suits me to do so.

Yes but it means you lose. By refusing to answer a point it means that you conceed it. That's internet discussions 101.

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Originally posted by Scottish
I dislike you

I really couldn't give a damn either way.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 23, 2005, 08:12:18 pm: Quote
Originally posted by karajorma
If you have the novel in front of you and the option to do a keyword search on it and still can't it means you are lazy or points to some other drastic flaw.

Lazy.

Also, that'd be cheating.

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Yes but it means you lose. By refusing to answer a point it means that you conceed it. That's internet discussions 101.

Yes, but in the real world - where a man's hand isn't his only friend - refusing to answer a direct question is a mark of disrespect.

I was being calculating.

Like when I removed the whole 'cherry picking' paragraph from this response. I found it funny to do so. But I thought I should probably explain what I was doing so you didn't get confused and accuse me of the exact same thing over and over again, missing the point entirely.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: karajorma on October 23, 2005, 08:19:53 pm: Quote
Originally posted by Scottish

Lazy.

Also, that'd be cheating.

If you're doing it correct in the first place you wouldn't need to cheat. You only need to cheat when you don't have a clue how to do it without cheating.

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Originally posted by Scottish
Yes, but in the real world

That's the real world with unicorns and gremlins in it that you inhabit? :lol:

I doubt you've even seen pictures of the real world.

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Originally posted by Scottish
Like when I removed the whole 'cherry picking' paragraph from this response. I found it funny to do so. But I thought I should probably explain what I was doing so you didn't get confused and accuse me of the exact same thing over and over again, missing the point entirely.

:ha: Brilliant response. Why don't you ignore every single comment made by everyone on the board and be done with it since you refuse to accept the possibility that your outlook or logic might be wrong.

That way you can go to bed safe in the knowledge that everything you believe is correct no matter how foolish it actually is.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 23, 2005, 08:22:19 pm: So, who likes fish?
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Grey Wolf on October 23, 2005, 08:46:55 pm: Swordfish FTW.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Jetmech Jr. on October 23, 2005, 08:50:15 pm: After seeing those two rapidly shut down threads, this has become much more amusing.
Title: An Age of Suspicion?
Post by: Scottish on October 23, 2005, 08:51:09 pm: Yeah, I bring the fun in.