Chapter 7
From David Quinn
Mon Jan 05, 2004 1:27 pm:
Father Doulatov wrote:
Quote: |
DQ: - That the simulation will necessarilly be too basic and
primitive to fool us. In other words, you are ignoring the
possibility, say, that the simulation has been created by
highly-advanced beings who have ironed out all the
inconsistencies over millions of years. |
Why must it be the case? Why should R (reality beyond the mind)
even exist in the first place? And if it does exist, why should there
be any objects in R that resemble, or have any connection to, the
objects in P (perceived reality)? Once again, we have all these
hidden assumptions . . . . . . .
Quote: |
This is called an ontological inconsistency of the type A exists and A does not exist. For example, imagine you have to map a flat surface onto a sphere. Try doing this at home, give yourself a little sense of what it means to live in reality. A sphere contains an existence which the surface does not contain, namely curvature. Thus, no matter how hard you try to make it "fit", there will always be places where it won't align and form wrinkles. These are, in essence, the inconsistencies that I am referring to. It makes no difference who the designer of the simulation is. Even God would be unable to make the sphere fit perfectly onto a flat plane. |
And how have you established that the sphere isn't an illusion,
one that is insignificant from the larger perspective? I have yet to
see this from you.
Regardless of whether there are perceived
inconsistencies or not, the possibility that the entire world that we
experience through the senses is a simulation of some kind continues
to exist. The reason I keep bringing this point up is to counter the
irrational belief that science can uncover absolute principles. I
would like to see you deal with this point in a simple,
straightforward manner without using any symbols or academic jargon.
Can you do it?
Quote: |
DQ: What you're doing, Sergei, is treating a blind assumption
made by scientists as though it were a bedrock truth - which,
again, is essentially no different to what a fundamentalist
Christian does. |
The "rigorous proofs" you have given have been
evasions. Instead of discussing these matters with me in a simple,
straightforward manner, like a human being, you're continually
escaping into a world of pre-packaged scripts and academic
wonderlands. It's quite bizarre.
Quote: |
I am standing on the shoulders of giants who have made scientific progress possible throughout human history, which in the long run is the only thing responsible for improvement of man's condition. |
Your appeal to authority is noted, Father Doulatov.
Quote: |
Anything that does not have to do with science is a waste of time with respect to our continued survival and prosperity. |
Ah, I see.
Quote: |
Either go back to school, learn a few things and then we can continue this discussion or stop wasting wasting my time and detracting me from this mission with your idle banter. |
No problem, Sergei. Go back to counting angels on pinheads. You
obviously think it's important. I shan't hold you up any further.
From David Quinn
Mon Jan 05, 2004 1:44 pm:
Andrew Beckwith wrote:
Quote: |
DQ: I've said this many times already, but I do not "deny
empirical knowledge altogether". I am merely putting it in
its proper place. |
It has minimal importance as far as comprehending Ultimate Truth
is concerned, yes. But science is obviously important when it comes
to creating empirical models, making predictions, manipulating Nature
for our material gain, etc.
Quote: |
DQ: Now it is normal scientific practice to treat these observed
inconsistencies as products of the current limitations of
science, and not as part of the fabric of the world itself.
Scientists naturally believe these inconsistencies will
disappear when they acquire more observational data and further
refine their theories. But there is no real certainty this will
automatically happen. It may turn out that some of the the
observed inconsistencies will always remain, that they really
are part of the world. Who knows? |
I wouldn't get too excited. In what way have I blown off
causality? Please provide some reasoning.
If some devious
beings causally create a simulated world which contains
inconsistencies, how does that deny causality?
Quote: |
DQ: What you're doing, Sergei, is treating
a blind assumption made by scientists as though it were a
bedrock truth - which, again, is essentially no different to
what a fundamentalist Christian does. |
I read it, but didn't see anything that applied to the discussion
we are having here. Which part are you refering to exactly?
Quote: |
Please don't cry too hard if you have your assumptions cave in on you some day in the near future with you feeling very, very foolish after you denied what was obvious to the rest of the NPU board. Saying it ( what you dislike so much) is not possibly true will not make the issue go away. |
I have no idea what you are talking about. Does anyone speak
English around here?
From Andrew Beckwith
Mon Jan 05, 2004 3:04 pm:
Quote: |
It has minimal importance as far as comprehending Ultimate Truth is concerned, yes. But science is obviously important when it comes to creating empirical models, making predictions, manipulating Nature for our material gain, etc. |
Russell made a very good point which you should have talked about
with him that symmetry issues and conservation laws are the
underpinnings of much of what is relevant to physical imputs into key
philosophical issues. In a sense they could form a hierarchy leading
to an 'ultimate truth' or a philosophy construction of ideas leading
to something approximating it.
However, without that bridge
what you are doing is navel gazing. Since you navel gaze, I say you
have blown off casuality. Try to repair that omission.
Quote: |
I have no idea what you are talking about. Does anyone speak English around here? |
We can reason coherently. You cannot. Next
question?
And, now for a question for you, David. Why does
your genius site reek of such hate for women ? It's palatable. And,
it stinks. In my eyes you have taken the worst features of Greek
philosophy while ignoring the spirit of open inquiry which made
Athens during Pericles the worlds leader in logic.
Andrew
Beckwith, PhD
From David Quinn
Mon Jan 05, 2004 7:34 pm:
Andrew Beckwith wrote:
Quote: |
Russell made a very good point which you should have talked about with him that symmetry issues and conservation laws are the underpinnings of much of what is relevant to physical imputs into key philosophical issues. In a sense they could form a hierarchy leading to an 'ultimate truth' or a philosophy construction of ideas leading to something approximating it. |
I suppose, perhaps, it could be thought, especially with the
benefit of hindsight, that the symmetry issues and conservation laws
may well approximate a certain hierarchy leading to a relatively
contingent version of "ultimate truth, or at least something
which resembles it, depending on what terms are agreed upon by the
scientific community, or at least certain elements of it. But I like
what Sir Humphery Appleby had to say on the matter, when he said:
I
remember the argument to the effect that, in view of the somewhat
nebulous and inexplicit nature of your remit, and the arguably
marginal
and peripheral nature of your influence on the central
deliberations and
decisions within the political process, there
could be a case for
restructuring their action priorities in such
a way as to eliminate your
liquidation from their immediate
agenda.
Pretty much sums it up, I would have thought.
Quote: |
And, now for a question for you, David. Why does your genius site reek of such hate for women ? It's palatable. |
There is no hatred for women on the Genius site, at least not
from me. Where is your evidence or reasoning for this? I do think
that women are significantly inferior to men when it comes to the
higher activities of life, such as spirituality and philosophy, and
even art and science. But in saying this, I am simply expressing the
truth. There's no hatred involved.
From Kitten
Mon Jan 05, 2004 7:37 pm:
"I do think that women are significantly inferior to men when it
comes to the higher activities of life, such as spirituality and
philosophy, and even art and science."
Did you really say
that? I'm not dreaming this...you said that you have respect for
women, and no hate of them...then said that? David, I'm tired of
beating around the bush...I'm coming right out and saying exactly
what most who have read your posts are thinking:
You're a moron.
Get the fuck off our site.
From Andrew Beckwith
Mon Jan 05, 2004 8:07 pm:
Quote: |
I suppose, perhaps, it could be thought, especially with the
benefit of hindsight, that the symmetry issues and conservation
laws may well approximate a certain hierarchy leading to a
relatively contingent version of "ultimate truth, or at
least something which resembles it, depending on what terms are
agreed upon by the scientific community, or at least certain
elements of it. But I like what Sir Humphery Appleby had to say
on the matter, when he said: |
You BSed me both ways, David. Now let me tell you what you just
did. You tried to conn a person who has studied symbolic logic all
his life. You tried to back track and then you took out of context
Appeleby in order to save face with your cult.
You are a
fraud. And, I am not amused. I have treated you with kit gloves ,
David, and I will take them off from now on and point out EVERY
absurdity you put out. From now on I will pin every nonsensical spew
you put out and the consequences be DAMNED for your reputation with
that cult of yours.
Have a nice day. I hope you realize what
you just did to yourself.
Andrew Beckwith, PhD
From David Quinn
Mon Jan 05, 2004 8:30 pm
Kitten wrote:
Quote: |
DQ: I do think that women are significantly inferior to men when
it comes to the higher activities of life, such as spirituality
and philosophy, and even art and science." |
I also think dogs are inferior to men when it comes to higher
activities, but it doesn't mean I hate them.
The scientific
community also recognizes that genius is primarily the province of
the male. A couple of years ago, the long-standing editor of Nature
magazine (I can't recall his name, Sir somebody or other) was asked
to list what he thought was the top 50 scientists of the 20th
century, as determined by the quality and magnitute of their
achievements. His list naturally included the names of Einstein,
Bohr, Feynman, Crick, etc, but interestingly, it also included no
women. He couldn't even find a token female to slip in.
Quote: |
David, I'm tired of beating around the bush...I'm coming right
out and saying exactly what most who have read your posts are
thinking: |
Well, at least you're speaking plain simple English. That's
something.
I can understand why you would get upset at my
remarks, Kitten, but I do hope that the males on this forum, at
least, will refrain from allowing their emotions to swamp their
thought-processes. But I won't be holding my breath.
From Andrew Beckwith
Mon Jan 05, 2004 8:46 pm:
Quote: |
I also think dogs are inferior to men when it comes to higher activities, but it doesn't mean I hate them. |
David,
One last time. I am watching you in this, and I will point
out your inconsistencies.
It would be better for you if you
leave quietly. You cannot be this thick to maintain face for your
cult.
Quote: |
I can understand why you would get upset at my remarks, Kristy, but I do hope that the males on this forum, at least, will refrain from allowing their emotions to swamp their thought-processes. But I won't be holding my breath. |
Oh, who is losing their cool here ? Do you wish for me to point
out what you did to yourself EARLIER ?
Quote: |
I suppose, perhaps, it could be thought, especially with the
benefit of hindsight, that the symmetry issues and conservation
laws may well approximate a certain hierarchy leading to a
relatively contingent version of "ultimate truth, or at
least something which resembles it, depending on what terms are
agreed upon by the scientific community, or at least certain
elements of it. But I like what Sir Humphery Appleby had to say
on the matter, when he said: |
Having it both ways to save face in NPU by a token back track for
being wrong and then citing a not applicable quote by Appleby to save
face for the back tracking in front of your cult, David ? Cute.
Really, please step on your **** again, David. I love it when
you do exactly what you accuse OTHERS of doing.
From Kitten
Mon Jan 05, 2004 8:57 pm:
Oh this was not purely emotion, believe me…you would not like
to see me being an illogical, purely emotional, female. I was going
easy on you in the post in politics…and purely blunt here.
David, science was once a very male dominated field, much like
everything else, until recently. All thanks to something called the
woman’s rights movement, maybe you should look that up. You
compared women to dogs? I am sorry, but as a cognitive science
student I can here say with confidence that a woman has many more
neurological connections and synapses than a dog. And many women, it
would seem, have infinitely more than you. If you take a step back
and read what I posted for once, (something I’ve realized that
you’re not keen on doing referring to my last message here on
Nirvana), I never said you hate women. In fact, what I posted was the
complete opposite to that: you said you had NO hate of women. Very
few women have entered into the field of science until recently;
truthfully I do not believe a goddamn word your saying about this
editor who has no name. Rosalyn Sussman, Christiane Nusslein-Volhard,
Marie Curie, Ada Byron Lovelace, Maud Menton, Sophie Germain,
Florence Allen, Maria Goeppert Mayer, Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin,
Gertrude Elion …and you’re telling me that none of these
made it onto this list of great mathematic and scientific minds of
the twentieth century? You’re kidding me right? Not one? What
kind of a list was this again? Oh right, you don’t remember who
wrote it. *nods*
Yes, I did speak plain and simple English
*smiles* It’s the only kind you can understand.
Then again,
maybe you didn’t, as you read it and posted again…*shakes
her head*
From David Quinn
Mon Jan 05, 2004 9:07 pm:
Andrew Beckwith, PHD, wrote:
Quote: |
You BSed me both ways, David. Now let me tell you what you just did. You tried to conn a person who has studied symbolic logic all his life. You tried to back track and then you took out of context Appeleby in order to save face with your cult. |
I don't believe that I took Appleby's remarks entirely out of
context, although it may well have turned out that way had I not
quoted his remarks in italics. As it stands, however, it is my
contention that the remarks were only 4, or possibly 5% out of
context, which, as I'm sure you will agree, falls within the
acceptable range of contextual variation, as described by Poe and
Johnson in their wonderfully crisp paper, The Inter-logical
Dynamcis of Contextual Variation as Applied to Statements of
Empirical Possibility. But consider what Appleby had to say on
another subject:
The identity of the Official whose
alleged responsibility for this hypothetical oversight has been the
subject of recent discussion, is NOT shrouded in quite such
impenetrable obscurity as certain previous disclosures may have led
you to assume, but not to put too fine a point on it, the individual
in question is, it may surprise you to learn, one whom you present
interlocutor is in the habit of defining by means of the
perpendicular pronoun.
You can't say that I quoted him
our of context here, surely.
From Andrew Beckwith
Mon Jan 05, 2004 9:09 pm:
Now I will be to the point. B.S. Pure and simple. Sorry, David.
From Kitten
Mon Jan 05, 2004 9:11 pm:
*cracks up laughing* *falls to her knees pointing at Quinn* *giggles hysterically* *takes a deep breath, calms down, and stands up* He told you Quinn! And he won't stop pointing out your flaws, which appear in EVERY post! *heh*
From analog57
Mon Jan 05, 2004 9:26 pm:
David Quinn wrote: |
I remember the argument to the effect that, in view of the
somewhat |
The categorical representation of a propositional conundrum, in
which deductive invalidity depends on the modality of the truth
conditionals concerning the prerequisite of the contingent assumption
and consequent conclusion. The totally relevant content of the
assumption and conclusion, definitely contains no modal terms. But,
the modality attaches to the fact that the conditional assumption is
quite possibly true, while the conditional conclusion is necessarily
false.
Which leads us to an argumentational representation of
a completely non-bogus modal formulation of the paradox of existence
itself, and, the oh so elusive "ultimate truth" that DQ
earnestly seeks but apparently has not the cereberal fortitude, or
courage, to follow it to the ultimate conclusion of conclusions.
Deductive invalidity is most excellently predicated on the
categorical truth of the modal-term-laden assumption and the
definitive categorical falsehood of the modal-term-laden conclusion.
Hence, the assumption is, such, that if the antecedent of a
contingently true conditional is false, then, the consequent of the
conclusion can be true is itself quite simply and most elegantly
...true. Therefore, the conclusion that if it is not the case that
the consequent of a contingently true conditional can be true, then
it is not the case that the antecedent of the true conditional is
false, is itself quite simply, false.
Meta-philosophical
scruples notwithstanding, existence is, a paradox.
Alpha =
Omega
It is the categorical formulation of the simultaneous,
situational, instantiated contradiction, where deductive invalidity
is the product of the utmost categorical truth of the assumption that
if the antecedent of a true conditional is false, then the consequent
of the conditional is true or false indifferently, and of the
categorical falsehood of the conclusion consequently predicates that
if it be not the case that the consequent of a true conditional is
true or false indifferently, then, it is not the case that the
antecedent of the conditional is false. To pronounce the consequent
of a true conditional as being true or false indifferently is
tantamount to saying modally that where the antecedent of a true
conditional is notoriously false, then the consequent can, or could
be, or is, possibly true or false. But it may be worthwhile to see
that the definitive, simultaneous equality of both true, and false,
can be formulated without explicitly including modal terms, which
become the predicating operators, which, for the sake of showing that
the consequent paradoxical conundrum is not straightforwardly
resolvable by appealing to concrete philosophical scruples concerning
the intensionality of predicated modal contexts.
From David Quinn
Mon Jan 05, 2004 9:31 pm:
Kitten wrote:
Quote: |
What kind of a list was this again? Oh right, you don’t remember who wrote it. *nods* |
I managed to track down his name:
Sir John Maddox, editor
of Nature magazine from 1966-73 and 1980-95, was
recently asked
to compile a list of the 10 greatest scientists of this
century -
defined in terms of making the most significant breakthroughs or
the
greatest impact upon their particular field of research. His pick:
1. Albert Einstein
2. Ernest Rutherford
3. Emil
Fischer
4. Paul Dirac
5. Werner Heisenberg
6. Linus
Pauling
7. Richard Feynman
8. Francis Crick
9. Hermann
Muller
10. MacFarlane Burnet
He also provided a list of
the next best 10 (ranked in no particular order):
Neils Bohr
Erwin Schrodinger
Charles Sherrington
Louis Leakey
Fred
Hoyle
Steven Weinberg
Edwin Hubble
Wolfgang Pauli
Jules
Poincare
Harry Hess
Note that there is not a single woman
named in either of these two lists.
Other names that John
Maddox considered, but eventually discarded, include:
Howard
Florey, Robert Robertson, Peter Mitchell, Alan Turing, Otto Hahn,
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Robert Edwards, Stanley Cohen, Fred
Sanger,
Kamerlingh Onnes, Arnold Sommerfield, Arthur Compton, San
Goudsmit, George
Uhlenbeck, Carl Anderson, Ernest Chadwick, Hans
Bethe, Eugene Wigner, and
Edward Teller. Again, there is not a
single woman in this group.
--
In my view, this
illustrates very clearly that while women are capable of being
competent scientists and can even make some significant breakthroughs
if they happen to be in the right place and the right time, they are
unable to rise to the level of genius required to really expand the
frontiers of science. And when you consider that scientific genius is
actually a far weaker and more diluted form of genius than
philosophical genius, it also illustrates just how far away women are
from enlightenment.
Quote: |
David, science was once a very male dominated field, much like everything else, until recently. All thanks to something called the woman’s rights movement, maybe you should look that up. |
The list by Maddox indicates that the woman's movement has failed
thus far to produce female scientific geniuses of any note, despite a
century of women entering universities and becoming scientists.
Quote: |
You compared women to dogs? |
No, I compared my dispassionate attitude towards dogs with my
dispassionate attitude towards women.
From David Quinn
Mon Jan 05, 2004 9:56 pm:
analog57 wrote:
Quote: |
It is the categorical formulation of the simultaneous, situational, instantiated contradiction, where deductive invalidity is the product of the utmost categorical truth of the assumption that if the antecedent of a true conditional is false, then the consequent of the conditional is true or false indifferently, and of the categorical falsehood of the conclusion consequently predicates that if it be not the case that the consequent of a true conditional is true or false indifferently, then, it is not the case that the antecedent of the conditional is false. To pronounce the consequent of a true conditional as being true or false indifferently is tantamount to saying modally that where the antecedent of a true conditional is notoriously false, then the consequent can, or could be, or is, possibly true or false. But it may be worthwhile to see that the definitive, simultaneous equality of both true, and false, can be formulated without explicitly including modal terms, which become the predicating operators, which, for the sake of showing that the consequent paradoxical conundrum is not straightforwardly resolvable by appealing to concrete philosophical scruples concerning the intensionality of predicated modal contexts. |
I couldn't agree more. Very well put.