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Post by alancalverd on Jan 29, 2014 9:30:31 GMT 1
"I am" requires a sentient observer because "I am" is a concept and concepts require minds. So a machine that recognises my face or password is sentient? Or are you suggesting that the tree that falls in a deserted forest makes no noise?
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 29, 2014 9:52:11 GMT 1
"I am" requires a sentient observer because "I am" is a concept and concepts require minds. So a machine that recognises my face or password is sentient? Or are you suggesting that the tree that falls in a deserted forest makes no noise? No, machines cannot think.
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 29, 2014 13:29:32 GMT 1
I think you have adulterated your quote. What's the bit in the middle you've left out? I'd like to have been able to link to the page, but the OED site won't let you do that - you have to have a subscription to consult it online. I can do it by virtue of my local authority library service subscribing. You might find you can do the same, if you log in with your library card number. You can do it here: www.oed.com/loginpageI have not adulterated my quote in any way though, except to miss out the illustrative examples. They have nothing to do with the etymology of the word, which I include in my quote. Here's a link to some definitions from other dictionaries: www.thefreedictionary.com/snipeAs you see, no source is given for any meaning of the verb other than the noun referring to the bird. When do I get my £100? Then I can only reiterate, you're a gullible automaton with a servile credulity to "authorities" you've been taught to believe without thinking for yourself. Latin was your ideal subject. It certainly wasn't ornithology! As anyone who has the slightest familiarity with the snipe could have told you, or the OED, if they have made such a comical error - which I still very much doubt. As for your online source... You really have no clue, do you, even about something you claim is your own area of expertise. Right - I see I shall have to consult my own dictionary, generally acknowledged to be the most academically authoritative in the world for its time. As I thought, the root given by Funk & Wagnalls is the old dutch snippen, a short quick cutting movement. The root of the gamebird is given as the Icelandic snipa, a light hunt. Now, no doubt that derives from the original germanic snippen, too; but to reverse the precedence in such an obvious way is nothing but perverse.
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 29, 2014 13:38:27 GMT 1
If you concede that "I" exists then you have to show how you arrived at this conclusion. Didn't you read my post? I said of course it doesn't exist - obviously! Not in the Cartesian or any other dualist sense, at any rate. I can't readily think of any serious thinker who has argued otherwise for nearly a century - John Eccles and Viscount Samuel excepted (but hardly their area of competence.) "I" exists in the same sense that a computer's CPU exists, to put it very crudely. All due respect to John Searle. Yes. It's not hard: it's been done comprehensively by Hume, Ryle, Drake, Armstrong, Strong, Dennett, the Churchlands, and many mnay others. You can go back millenia and consult the vedanta for such an analysis, if you prefer your religion to philosophy.
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 29, 2014 13:44:46 GMT 1
There is nothing complex at all about the statement: "I think, therefore I am" because of its pure tautological truth. On my planet, tautologies are commutative. Things that think certainly exist, but not everything that exists, thinks. So it isn't a tautology. If you want to use the logician's definition of tautology, one part of the statement must be universally true. "Cogito" is not necessarily so, so "sum" must be. Therefore existence does not require a sentient observer. For once, philosophy accords with science, even though the connection is only an accident of misappropriated language. I agree of course, except for your misappropriation of this analysis to "science"! What science?
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 29, 2014 13:58:53 GMT 1
No - obviously. Not in Descartes' sense, at any rate, or any dualist sense. Answer, please: This is your argument: All we know is what we perceive. There is another sort of "reality" that exists apart from our perceptions, but this "noumenal" reality is in principle forever beyond our perceptions, "phenomenal reality", and we can never know anything about it. You have by definition no possible evidence for the existence of this "noumenal reality", but you say you don't need any, because it's an a priori argument, derived purely from logical reasoning.
Right? Would you agree that's a fair summary of your position? It's what you've said over and over - this is what you still stand by?
Now, this is my counter-argument: We are able to know about a reality that exists outside of our perceptions because that reality consists of energetic forms in spatio-temporal relations and our perceptual apparatus accurately registers, preserves, and conveys those spatio-temporal relations to our awareness, in our brains. It does so because our awareness and our brains are themselves energetic forms in spatio-temporal relations, and accurate correspondence is thereby possible. More than possible - the fact that such accurate correspondence can and does occur, both within outside reality and within our brains, is adequately proven by all our experience: including, for just one example out of an infinity of them, of your successful ability to recognise a photo of a phone kiosk, transmitted to you through phone lines and fibre-optic cables and em radiation and electronic illumination of screen pixels and retinal cell activation and neorchemical impulse transmission. You recognise a phone kiosk - something, like everything else in the world that you experience, your analysis of this phenomena-noumena metephysic is totally unable to account for.
Now - please answer my counter-argument. As it stands, it has completely broken the logical circle of your argument. What we experience as phenomena are not necessarily totally divorced and utterly different in nature to the outside reality independently existent of them. Okay? Now, it's up to you to explain why this is wrong, and why your tautological argument should be taken seriously, when I've just shown that it's false. "We are able to know about a reality that exists outside of our perceptions..." Once again, this a self-contradictory statement because that which we are unable to perceive is beyond our awareness and it is not that we are able to "know" directly about reality that exists outside of our perceptions but that there exists a reality outside of our perceptions, by logical deduction. If you can't grasp this idea perhaps it's time to move on. I have already answered this point, which in any case is not a response to the passage you've quoted. It is not a self-contradictory statement, for the simple reason I immediately give and you've completely ignored: ...because that reality consists of energetic forms in spatio-temporal relations and our perceptual apparatus accurately registers, preserves, and conveys those spatio-temporal relations to our awareness, in our brains.So no one is talking about "that which we are unable to perceive" except you. I'm trying to account for our experience; I still don't know what you're doing! Neither do you: your whole argument is self-contradictory. You claim that all we know is through our perceptions yet declare quite wrongly that you have "logically deduced" that there must be a reality outside of them. Of course, by your own premises there can be no such logical deduction - you've nothing to deduce it from! You've just made it up. Yet, having made it up, you still fail to provide the slightest description of how this noumenal reality gives rise, or could possibly give rise, to our phenomenal perceptions. Your invention doesn't even explain anything! Do you understand? Your metaphysical and epistemological theory doesn't explain anything. It doesn't account for experience. The alternative analysis I've given you does. Now - it doesn't mean there are no problems with this alternative. I've given you in its basic, crude, unanalysed form. It's a fascinating intellectual adventure to explore those problems, and examine the possible solutions to them - largely what philosophy has been about for the past century, and more. But you won't even get close to such an adventure if you're content to rest with such an easy and senseless theory as yours (Berkeley's, to be more accurate), when you can't even address a simple demonstration that it's logically fallacious. Please do so, if you're going to. I'm off at the end of the month, so you haven't got long if you're genuinely interested in this sort of problem.
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 29, 2014 14:15:19 GMT 1
On my planet, tautologies are commutative. Things that think certainly exist, but not everything that exists, thinks. So it isn't a tautology. If you want to use the logician's definition of tautology, one part of the statement must be universally true. "Cogito" is not necessarily so, so "sum" must be. Therefore existence does not require a sentient observer. For once, philosophy accords with science, even though the connection is only an accident of misappropriated language. "I am" requires a sentient observer because "I am" is a concept and concepts require minds. If what you say about existence not requiring a sentient observer is true then how does "I am" come about?; how does it come to exist? If I could not observe myself how could the idea of "I" be tenable? Just because we linguistically analyse the world using nouns and verbs does not mean every noun we make exists as an effective object. When we say "it's raining" what we actually mean is that raining is occurring. No they don't. You have no evidence for this empirical assertion whatsoever. And as has been pointed out to you since page one, by myself and Fascinsating and Alan and mister p, it doesn;t even make any logical sense. Yes, that's your argument; that's why it doesn't make any logical sense. You end up in the complete and obvious muddle of asserting that the planet and atmosphere and solar system and universe that are essential prerequisites for any thinking being to ever arise either don't exist until they do, which is what you started off arguing, or they exist in "God's mind", which is a completely empty and senseless concept in itself. Until you give an analysis of what it could possibly mean, that is.
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 29, 2014 14:26:26 GMT 1
So a machine that recognises my face or password is sentient? Or are you suggesting that the tree that falls in a deserted forest makes no noise? No, machines cannot think. This is increasingly an untenable proposition with every passing year. What is it that thinking beings do in your definition of "think" that AI machines - presumably in principle - can not do?
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Post by fascinating on Jan 29, 2014 14:43:06 GMT 1
Presumably Abacus means thinking in terms of what a sentient being does, there is a qualitative, subjective, awareness of thinking.
And anyway, whether or not a computer can think, if it asks the question "do I exist", or if it does anything whatsoever, then it must exist. That's the whole nub of Descartes' position, I believe; he knows that he is thinking, because he is asking the question "Do I exist?", and the fact that he does something (thinking) must mean he exists.
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Post by principled on Jan 29, 2014 15:11:15 GMT 1
Abacus
May I go back to my safe analogy for a moment? As I see it, the difference between the "noumenal" world you believe in and and that of the "ghost" one is as follows: In the "noumenal" world we have no evidence of its existence and can never have. This is the equivaalent of me saying there is something in the safe, but no one has ever seen me put it in there. There is no evidence, zilch. I cannot see that believing me is based on any logic and is just based on faith in what I (or even Kant)say/s. In the "ghost" world we have the equivalent of someone stating that they believe they have seen me putting something in the safe. Not hard evidence, but certainly more than the "noumenal" world's case. Why faith rather than logic. Well, I suppose it depends on how you define logic. I use logic in the sense of "reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity".Perhaps you can explain to me Kant's "principles of validity" compared to those of Ley line, ghosts , Dowsing, etc.? Let me return to your submission about a priori statements. You suggest (I think) that the "noumenal" world is a priori- based it would seem on the idea that it "relates to what can be known through an understanding of how certain things work rather than by observation". Whose "understanding" are we talking about? Why should I believe Kant's understanding any more than, say, Prahlad Jani who claims to be able to live without food or water because the goddess Amba sustains him? OK, they are different but I can no more disprove what Kant believed than I can what Jani believes. As it happens, I have a small degree of sympathy for your position. It is obbviously the case that there are things that we, as humans, cannot experience because of our physiology. I was reminded of this last night whilst watching a programme about sharks experiencing magnetic fields, which we of course cannot. Howvver, I am unconvinced that there is something "out there" that we will never be in a position to sense or MEASURE. I sometimes have difficulty with the Theory of Evolution, not so much with changes caused by the environment but with the appearance of new species. It would be easy to say that this evolution is pre-ordained by some mystic omnipotent force or being, but then I just return to the idea that iron ore doesn't look anything like a hammer head or a car body panel, but that doesn't mean that neither is derived from it.
BTW, I'm having major probs with this new layout. I'm using the quick reply at the moment so cannot even preview what I've typed, so if there are any glaring typos you'll know why! P
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 29, 2014 15:25:42 GMT 1
Presumably Abacus means thinking in terms of what a sentient being does, there is a qualitative, subjective, awareness of thinking. Okay - but this is a completely different proposition to Descartes' syllogism, isn't it? In this new form it would be: Thinking is going on. There is something that is aware of the thinking going on. Therefore that something exists. Yes? That was Hume's point, and pointing out of course that Descartes had not in the least given any proof of such a something. It's a posited premise. The premise may be false, another deception by the devil. Thus it can be doubted, and the Cartesian argument for indubitability is fallacious. Hume then went on to examine whether such an awareness does in fact exist. He concluded not, and it's very hard to disagree with him - I've never seen an argument that undermines his examination, anyway. When you examine your experience you find no "I", no separate process of something aware, apart from the internal experience itself. The impression that there is such a separate thing he fairly easily analysed into a habitual reification of continual association in space and time - one impression follows another, it seems there's a necessary connection, but in fact we have no experience of that connection at all. Just sequence. That's another argument again. Descartes wasn't arguing that something - the Devil, God - must exist. He hasn't shown that "he" is asking this or any other question, though, that's the fallacy. It could be his Devil. Or the Devil, or the Matrix. Or - merely - a stream of "thinking", sensations and associations and "organisation" of them, as, say, the vedantic analysis of experience would try to persuade us.
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Post by jean on Jan 29, 2014 15:43:54 GMT 1
Right - I see I shall have to consult my own dictionary, generally acknowledged to be the most academically authoritative in the world for its time. As I thought, the root given by Funk & Wagnalls is the old dutch snippen, a short quick cutting movement... Yes, that's the root of the verb to snip. No problem there. Yes, that's the noun snipe. No disagreement there with the OED, either. Now all you have to do is look up the verb to snipe, which it seems you have not yet done. If your edition of the dictionary was published before 1782 you won't find it, because that's the date of the first example the OED has got: 1782 G. Selwyn Let. in 15th Rep. Royal Comm. Hist. MSS (1899) App. VI. 621 Now people have been shot by platoons and in corps, the individual will be popped at or sniped, as they call it, from time to time.I'm given to understand that snipe are shot one by one, from cover and at long range. Have I been misinformed? (I am not really clear why relying on the OED in matters of etymology makes me a gullible automaton with a servile credulity to "authorities" , while relying on the authority of Funk & Wagnell is a sign of original thought on your part.)
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Post by jean on Jan 29, 2014 16:39:44 GMT 1
This may be helpful, though it's only wiki: A sniper is a highly trained marksman who operates alone, in a pair, or with a sniper team to maintain close visual contact with the enemy and engage targets from concealed positions or distances exceeding the detection capabilities of enemy personnel. These sniper teams operate independently, with little combat asset support from their parent units. Snipers typically have highly selective and specialized training and use high-precision/special application rifles and optics, and often have sophisticated communication assets to feed valuable combat information back to their units.
In addition to marksmanship, military snipers are trained in camouflage, field craft, infiltration, special reconnaissance and observation, surveillance and target acquisition. Snipers are especially effective when deployed within the terrain of urban warfare, or jungle warfare.
Etymology
The verb "to snipe" originated in the 1770s among soldiers in British India where a hunter skilled enough to kill the elusive snipe was dubbed a "sniper". The term sniper was first attested in 1824 in the sense of the word "sharpshooter".
Another term, "sharp shooter" was in use in British newspapers as early as 1801. In the Edinburgh Advertiser, 23 June 1801, can be found the following quote in a piece about the North British Militia; "This Regiment has several Field Pieces, and two companies of Sharp Shooters, which are very necessary in the modern Stile of War". The term appears even earlier, around 1781, in Continental Europe.
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 29, 2014 16:48:44 GMT 1
Right - I see I shall have to consult my own dictionary, generally acknowledged to be the most academically authoritative in the world for its time. As I thought, the root given by Funk & Wagnalls is the old dutch snippen, a short quick cutting movement... Yes, that's the root of the verb to snip. No problem there. [/i] while relying on the authority of Funk & Wagnell is a sign of original thought on your part.) [/quote] But no reliance occurs, that's the difference. I take it to be the considered opinion of the academic experts who compiled it, that's all. I know that academic experts can be and often are mistaken. It's the same difference between us as your insistence for page after page after page in a thread about prehistoric monuments that "imput" was a spelling mistake, because the OED said so, even after I gave you several alternative dictionary entries asserting the opposite; even after I gave you citations from over a dozen scientific journals and papers, both historic and contemporary, where the spelling was used, repeatedly - in Springer-Verlag, in Elsevier, in definitive publications by the Cambridge and Oxford and Stanford university presses, by MIT and Milan and Padua and Stockholm and Gottingen university publications, in definitive works by this country's most celebrated historian of science - even after all that, you still insisted that you were right, and all these scientists and engineers and practising academic authorities were wrong. Page after page - merely in an attempt to undermine what I was saying about a subject, again, that you had no interest in whatsoever.
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 29, 2014 16:54:14 GMT 1
This may be helpful, though it's only wiki: A sniper is a highly trained marksman who operates alone, in a pair, or with a sniper team to maintain close visual contact with the enemy and engage targets from concealed positions or distances exceeding the detection capabilities of enemy personnel. These sniper teams operate independently, with little combat asset support from their parent units. Snipers typically have highly selective and specialized training and use high-precision/special application rifles and optics, and often have sophisticated communication assets to feed valuable combat information back to their units.
In addition to marksmanship, military snipers are trained in camouflage, field craft, infiltration, special reconnaissance and observation, surveillance and target acquisition. Snipers are especially effective when deployed within the terrain of urban warfare, or jungle warfare.
Etymology
The verb "to snipe" originated in the 1770s among soldiers in British India where a hunter skilled enough to kill the elusive snipe was dubbed a "sniper". The term sniper was first attested in 1824 in the sense of the word "sharpshooter".
Another term, "sharp shooter" was in use in British newspapers as early as 1801. In the Edinburgh Advertiser, 23 June 1801, can be found the following quote in a piece about the North British Militia; "This Regiment has several Field Pieces, and two companies of Sharp Shooters, which are very necessary in the modern Stile of War". The term appears even earlier, around 1781, in Continental Europe.Shame you weren't talking about soldiers and shooting though, isn't it, but criticisng someone. Funk & Wagnall's gives over a dozen meanings of the noun snipe. The fifth, going back to Chaucer's time, is slang for a pair of scissors, presumably the source of the 15th Century meaning of "a tailor". Appropriatly, the eighth entry is "a fool, blockhead."
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