Originally posted by CP5670
okay...so why did you bring up the topic of change in the first place then? 
Because of what you said:
Of course, the principles can still can be used to predict from certain other events whether or not the glass is half full. You don't need to use them but they can still work. And a state of being is a form of change.
I insisted that theories 1) deal with change, which we aren't looking at, just an instantaneous state, and 2) still require some observation at some point to start with for making their predictions, and thus on both counts I argued that scientific theory could not get us out of the quandry posed by our inability to perfectly measure the situation.
eh...what does this have to do what I said? 
You were trying to use an argument based on the need for the mind's active involvment in the observational process as a support for your argument regarding theory and its usefulness in assessing the real state of the glass. I said what I said as a rebuttal, pointing out the difference between theory and mental category to do so.
Once again, why must it be a real glass? It can just as likely be a theoretical glass, since it was never stated which type it is.
You never quite said that before the last post. The closest you got was
We are not interested in a "real state" here, but an approximation to the real state, since it is impossible to get an exact value by direct observation
but that isn't quite the same thing. In your original statement quoted here, you are talking about approximating the real glass, not simply dropping reference to the real glass that never was.
That is all beside the point; you said a while ago that a measurement that is not absolutely accurate is non-real and non-real things are irrelevant to real stuff, which, while having nothing to do with the topic of the glass, implies that you think that an absolutely critical process of experimental science (that of observation) is irrelevant, making any further deductions from these observations also irrelevant.
It is precisely the point, and has everything to do with the topic of the glass. It is the point because my stated position on the relevance of experimental science from the beginning has been 1) that it is entirely and deeply relevant to the task of keeping our theories as closely approximate to reality as possible, but 2) irrelevant to the question of how things actually are, because it can only approximate. (Indeed, there is
nothing that humans can do except approximate, but that doesn't change the situation re: experimental science.)
It has to do with the topic of the glass because the state of the glass, as a real phenomenon, is precisely one of the situations discussed in point 2 above.
Exactly, but there is no need to write that down explicitly, just as one need not write that the glass is real if it was so.
Don't we? But the language is so ambiguous that way, and I thought ambiguity was to be avoided at every turn in a language, CP5670!
(We never did finish that one did we? Of course, it was getting pointless.)
Demonstrated with complete certitude.
But that is impossible for a real glass anyway.
Thank you, I rest my case. If the discussion in this thread had been talking about the glass here on my desk instead of an already imaginary one, all my points would have been valid, and the question whether this glass here on my desk was half full or half empty would have been meaningless.
*Kicks feet back in satisfaction*
*Falls asleep*
*Falls off chair*
Actually a different theory would be indeed be necessary since this "raw processing" is impossible without some existing knowledge, but that is all beside the point here.
Most technically what is needed are mental categories such as space, glass, full, and half. Armed with these categories, I can filter my sensory experience into a meaningful situation, with no heed to any propositional theories. Take the example of a newborn child: it is born without any theoretical knowledge in its head, not a single proposition about the world. As it learns to develop mental categories, it begins to be able to interpret its experiences, so that "Mother" comes to be recognisable as "Mother."
Theories don't come until much later, after abstract thought has sufficiently developed. This is proof positive that theory is not necessary for basic "raw processing" of experience.
That is exactly what I have been saying the whole time!! bah, you ruined my fun at the last minute when I might have won this... 
Mwahaha!
Although again I would point out that you never quite said that at any point prior to the last post. Up until now you've been arguing that the approximation of the real glass was the proper object of concern, as opposed to arguing that in this case the ideal glass was the only one there was (since there was no glass sitting on a desk being spoken about by Petrarch).Anyway, I'm done with this thread now. It's gotten boring.
Poll
