Skepticism and The Normal

Nice summary.

"

*Bubb insists on not using "true" and "false" in the generally accepted way. Many of the links posted on philosophy point out that phrases like "Tigers are true" are essentially meaningless if they simply mean "Tigers are real". Yet, Bubb insists on using the word "true" to describe all things that exist.

On the subject of meaning, he also uses 'subjective' and 'objective' in a non-standard way (I'm not sure I've yet got a handle on exactly how he is defining them; possibly because he's slipping between meanings from sentence to sentence). Something can apparently be both subjective and objective at the same time, which is obviously not an example of a trivial truth to the rest of us. Oh, and beauty (physical and musical, at least) is objective.
 
ST said:
It is called ST 4567, and its power comes from four core axioms:

4. Bread is made from ants.
5. Dogs can hear gravy.
6. Dough is only the begining.
7. Oranges are not just for Christmas.

There are three other axioms, but they are held secret until the full power of the central axioms are understood, just in case the experience is too profound for uninitiated minds to cope with. This generally takes about 500 posts to a certified uberthread. Then you receive the invitation to participate in an initiation ceremony under a bridge, involving goats. That's all I'm at liberty to reveal at the moment.

So please, feel free to use OS012 on ST4567, and prove them to be false.

go on, prove them false
 
Bubblefish is no longer restating his position on musical terms. The terms have been clarified, failure to gather meaning at this point after they have been clarified is due to a lack of questioning on your behalf. Please do not bore us with these semantical tit for tats on musical terms or interpretations of philosophy of music, it simply is not what the argument is about.

Regards,
The Agency


1. It is clear Bubblefish doesn't have a position to state in musical terms, or any other terms. He has demonstrated his musical knowledge is strictly limited, as is his knowledge of science, philosophy, mathematics, history, geography, English and all other languages. Bubblefish is still trolling his own thread as has almost certainly been his intention from the start.

2. Bubblefish has presented no argument with which to engage, only plagiarised, butchered quotes from Wikipedia and other sources.

3. There's no such word as "semantical", so don't bore us any more with words you can't spell and clearly don't understand.

4. Don't you have anything original, interesting and meaningful to present yet?
 
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Does anyone else think the "nonsense" tag appropriate to this thread?

:jaw-dropp
 
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I'm falling behind in keeping up with the posts here, but will eventually catch up.

Harmony and syncopation are not necessary, since you can have music without them.

Try to keep some consistancy or try to view the presuppositions of your rebuttals, they dont seem very thought through. You can also have a piece of music with F#, that doesnt mean F# isnt a part of the musical spectrum and is available too you once any note is played.

I, and others, have already given it. A single voice singing a nursery rhyme in strict time has no syncopation or harmony.

Oh really? So somehow nursery rhymes prevent arrangments due to the structure?

Learn to distinguish, musical notes in rythym, and arrangements. All compositions are arrangments of a musical motif and structure.

Row row row your boat, gently down the stream, merily merily merily merily merily, your argument's but a dream.


since you haven't stated the theoretical structure of OS012, it's hard to see how we can discuss it.

I have posted the six laws about, umm, five or six times, plus it's on the site, plus that's all this discussion is about, so if you dont know it, then you also dont know what your talking about by default.


Define 'objective' and 'subjective' for us again, go on, I could do with a laugh.

I already defined those about a gazillion times. I'm not your monkey, if your not paying attention, your of no value in this discussion.


I think you'll find, as has been stated several times before, that we all do understand objective and subjective. You are the one who doesn't.

That's a claim, not an argument. In actual argument, all of your definitions of subjective/objective have been shown to contain contradictions to reality, and the dictionary.

Sorry, I just can't be bothered, you've heard it all before and won't listen.

Oh that ol line, that's why your still here yammering on about subjects you dont understand with me after FIVE months. Right, sure, got it, believe you.


BF
 
Are you saying that, for example, without my brother, I wouldn't exist?

sure, that's what I'm saying, as well as your brother is also your father and your mom your second cousin.

BF

Yet again, this is not "teasing" - this is using insults. Stop it now.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Lisa Simpson
 
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sure, that's what I'm saying, as well as [unpleasantness deleted]

BF

Would you care to explain in what way this is not a completely unprovoked ad hominem attack, not to say unpleasant and insulting post, in response to a perfectly reasonable question?
 
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Try to keep some consistancy or try to view the presuppositions of your rebuttals, they dont seem very thought through. You can also have a piece of music with F#, that doesnt mean F# isnt a part of the musical spectrum and is available too you once any note is played.

Nobody is saying that syncopation and harmony are not part of music. But, like F#, they do not have to be present in every piece of music. They are not necessary for music. Yet that is essentially what you stated. You were wrong.


Oh really? So somehow nursery rhymes prevent arrangments due to the structure?
How about you learn to read and understand what is written. Yes, you can have arrangements of nursery rhymes with syncopation and as many harmonies as you like. But the fact that a single voice can sing a nursery in strict time simply shows that you can have music without either harmony or syncopation.
 
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Taking the statement "flimflam's trousers are blue" that statement is unknown to you but false to me (if we slip into ternary logic for a moment).

Okay.

So unknown is demonstrably not a universal truth value, since it differs according to the point of view.

That's like saying true isnt a truth value either because some people believe that God is true and others God is false.


That statement is objectively false, it can't be objectively unknown.

It could be objectively unknown to everyone in the world but you.

What do I look like? Does anyone here know?

(psst...quite handsome)

We all have unknowns just as much as we have truths and falsities. It doesnt matter at first WHAT we consider to be T, F, or M, the fact is, we all have those values relative to us as individuals and relative to us as a species. We have shared unknowns and unique unknowns. Shared truths and personal truths. What is true today is not true tommorow, yet 'true' remains regardless.

So questions can be "ideas" too. So "flimflam's trousers are blue" and "are flimflam's trousers blue?" are both ideas? Muy confusing Bubbster.

Yes, I understand you are confused, that's why I'm here to help. Of course questions are ideas, what else would they be? They have a unique quality, the ? to the !, another coupling that distinguishes ideas into two basic distinctions.

Questions in and of themselves of course are unknowns, that is why they are questions, questions seek to find what is known or understood and are queries that 'presupposes' an unknown relative to the querent.

THINK. It's not that hard.

Firstly it's "the cogito" not "the cognito" since it is "cogito ergo sum".

But you know what I am reffering to, right? Let's just call it 'C'

Secondly, it's incomplete?

Yes, it's incomplete.

Possibly the best known philosophical argument in history that has been debated for hundreds of years by some of the greatest minds we have ever known is incomplete, and your system has completed it?
Yes, but I hardly doubt OS 012 is the first one to complete it.

If I didn't already think that you were wildly delusional Bubb, this would just about put the tin lid on it.

WHy dont you try arguing my claim instead of appealing to authority and using ad hom?

That is the point of the cogito Bubb, that my thinking is proof of my (and only "my") existence.

But it's NOT your proof, your proof is your 'being'. Your being is an experience that transcends thinking. You just need the thinking to acknowledge that in language and meaning, which you arrive at with others.

The fact that it is summed up in "cogito ergo sum" is nice but in many ways it's a surprise that nobody came up with it before Descartes.

That's how I feel about OS 012, I cant believe no one came up with it yet.

No Bubb, you have clearly missed the point here. To quote from the link that I posted (which I'm not convinced you've read):

"First, a first-person formulation is essential to the certainty of the cogito. Third-person claims, such as “Icarus thinks,” or “Descartes thinks,” are not unshakably certain—not for me, at any rate; only the occurrence of my thought has a chance of resisting hyperbolic doubt."

Right, got that the first time. It's FLAT OUT WRONG. It's not fully considered. I stated my argument, and then you just repeated your same argument over. That's not how it works, you have to then refute my refutation with ANOTHER argument. Copy and pasting the same argument I already contradicted wont keep you afloat in this discussion.

So I do not have the same level of certainty of your existence as I do of my own.

You have enough juice of your own existence to know that I too exist. If I dont exist, then you are a solo mind, and you are the universe. If your too afraid to make that leap in your philosophy, then your philosophy is stuck in your mind.


A quick thought experiment: Imagine that I do not actually exist.

Been there;-)

Imagine that I am merely an alien brain in a jar and all my perceptions, experiences and feelings are produced by some all-powerful being manipulating the brain. That hypothesis explains everything (yes, everything) that I feel, experience and think just as well as the hypothesis that I am a homo sapien male sat in front of a computer on Earth.

well, it explains everything to you, but your easy and dont question reality much. Why dont you consider more than one hypothesis? If you consider more than one hypothesis, you dont have many to choose from, there is either mutual existence or there isnt. If there isnt, then you can come to make certain predictions that may or may not come true, and vice versa.


My entire perception of reality including this discussion and any conversation that I might get into could all be a feature of that simulation.

Not to me it isnt. For your hypothesis to be objectively true, then I must be apart of your simulation, your brain. So therefore I can argue for the contrary hypothesis, and then someone else can argue for YOUR hypothesis, and then you can watch our argument. try to explain that one to yourself after awhile, and see how many contradictions start to fly.

So dialectic, in as much as it involves communication between two parties is no proof of the nature of objective reality since it cannot be proved that the communication, nor the parties involved, actually exist

huh? all parties can verify thier own existence to themselves. If your insane, I probably cant prove to you I exist, but that hardly makes for a philosophical impact. Often, irrational people can't comprehend rationality, just because they dont comprehend it doesnt mean it doesnt exist.


Then you have not understood that the cogito implies a complete level of certainty beyond what you feel here.

The 'C' is dull and archaic. Try upgrading to 21st century philosophy.

Nope, because the point of view with which you exchange points of view could conceivably be a construct of a simulation by some cruel omnipotent being.

a omnipotent being is not a rational possibility in either a simulation or a reality, so you might as well be arguing for elves and fairies to prop up your philosophy as well.


The knowledge of language is just another part of the simulation by the cruel omnipotent being.

So only you and this omipotent being exist, how do you know your not being imagined by the omnipotent being?

My knowledge of self exists only in that I think, and by the very act of thinking, I prove to myself that I (the thing that thinks) exist.

Your knowledge of self exists in your thinking, yes, but not your EXPERIENCE of being. That has nothing to do with thinking, that has to do with FEELING, and that's where it all begins.

Learn to distinguish, please. EXPERIENCE and THINKING. They are not the same thing. And while your at it, distinguish KNOWLEDGE from UNDERSTANDING. See, you can understand you exist long before you can think you exist, dig?

If he has a solid refutation for the cogito I'd be interested to hear it, but this really doesn't sound like one. Any conversation that I have and any answer that I get to any question that I put could simply be part of the simulation. Have you never had a conversation in a dream?

Sure, but it is a specific conversation where you apply RATIONAL THINKING founded in the experience of your own being.

I cannot know who I am without you. You cannot know who you are without me. Without each other, none of us exist.

As you would say: a claim; not an argument. In this case it is a completely nonsensical claim too.

It's a more intuitive and expressive way of communicating something, I thought you stiffs could use a bit more of an intuitive expression to help you 'feel' it.

What a bunch of stiffs. So I guess intuition plays no role in our philosophies, eh? Even though our intuitions lead us to so many truths day in day out with the natural understanding that we exist with others, you stiffs are still trying to negate the neccesity of your own personal truth values for the sake of a dull philosophical argument from the 17th century.

Only a dualistic of bivalent philosophy would be so crude as to choose one over the other. The full expression of human being is found both in thinking and feeling, experiencing and percieving, knowledge and understanding.
 
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Mojo said:
Without each other, none of us exist.
Are you saying that, for example, without my brother, I wouldn't exist?
sure, that's what I'm saying... [gratuitous insult snipped]


I don't have a brother.

So you have a problem. According to you, without my non-existent brother I don't exist. If I don't exist, then, because "without each other, none of us exist", you don't exist either.

Bye.
 
Nobody is saying that syncopation and harmony are not part of music. But, like F#, they do not have to be present in every piece of music. They are not necessary for music. Yet that is essentially what you stated. You were wrong.

zoo, get over it. this argument is tired out. YOU DIDNT U NDERSTAND MY MEANING and are BORING the living daylights out of me with this stupid argument. MUSIC IS MUSIC, it's territory is vast and MATHEMATICAL. One singular voicing means NOTHING other than ONE SINGULAR VOICING. You can choose to add a harmony or not, but the point is you CAN CHOOSE TO BECAUSE IT'S ALREADY THERE, and that is what I mean when I say harmony and synopation is a neccesary truth of musical structure, you cant have music without it in princaple. In arrangments, you can have what ever you want.



How about you learn to read and understand what is written. Yes, you can have arrangements of nursery rhymes with syncopation and as many harmonies as you like. But the fact that a single voice can sing a nursery in strict time simply shows that you can have music without either harmony or syncopation.

Yeah, I got that the first time, and this is the eighth time you have repeated yourself. Your argument is a flat square, and mine is a live sphere. You failed to comprehend my usage of syncopation, and even when I clarified, you still repeat yourself. I'm not arguing this again, it's tired, stupid, boring.

If you dont ask me what I mean, then dont argue what you assume, i dont have much time and your now wasting what little I have. Get back to the real argument, not the side topic your mind is obsessing on in the slim hopes that you are right.

BF
 
zoo, get over it. this argument is tired out. YOU DIDNT U NDERSTAND MY MEANING and are BORING the living daylights out of me with this stupid argument.
I perfectly understood your meaning. Your meaning was wrong. If you are not prepared to recognise when you make such a simple mistake, how can you expect to realise when you make bigger errors?

MUSIC IS MUSIC, it's territory is vast and MATHEMATICAL. One singular voicing means NOTHING other than ONE SINGULAR VOICING. You can choose to add a harmony or not, but the point is you CAN CHOOSE TO BECAUSE IT'S ALREADY THERE, and that is what I mean when I say harmony and synopation is a neccesary truth of musical structure, you cant have music without it in princaple. In arrangments, you can have what ever you want.

There is a whole wealth of possibilities when arranging music and adding harmonies, but until you do it, they are not there. They are not necessary.

You were wrong.



Yeah, I got that the first time, and this is the eighth time you have repeated yourself. Your argument is a flat square, and mine is a live sphere. You failed to comprehend my usage of syncopation, and even when I clarified, you still repeat yourself. I'm not arguing this again, it's tired, stupid, boring.

I think you have failed to understand the meaning of what you said, and are still failing. I'm still waiting for the penny to drop.

If you dont ask me what I mean, then dont argue what you assume, i dont have much time and your now wasting what little I have. Get back to the real argument, not the side topic your mind is obsessing on in the slim hopes that you are right.

BF

But, as explained before, this is not a trivial side issue. It's entirely fundamental to your proposal that music is objectively beautiful. And you were wrong.
 
How can the meaning be sound when you are using the wrong word?

dude, think about what you just wrote above and figure out how your answer is in your question. I dont have time to update you on the distinctions between words and meaning. If you dont understand those distinctions either, study up on it, I'm not your professor.

No, you used the wrong word, repeatedly.

You mean I'm using the word in a way which you FAILED TO UNDERSTAND. Fine, I explain then my meaning and YOU STILL FAIL TO UNDERSTAND.

I need to put your tired arguments away for right now, catch up to this argument, I'm not here to repeat myself over and over


This is not simply picking at nits. You make the claim that music is objectively beautiful. If you then say that the minimum for music is 'syncopation' and 'harmony', beauty must detectable in that combination. So the next step would be for you to propose some way of identifying beautiful combinations of syncopation and harmony. This rather falls apart since not all music contains syncopation and harmony, so the assertion fails.

I can explain it to you, I cant understand it to you.

I already explained my usage. I can deconstruct music down to tones and notes, then rythyms and chords, then chords and harmonies, then syncopation and orchestrations, it's irrelevant. All of them are possible due to the simple beauty of tone in a natural voice with a rythme which gives it melody.


You are the one proposing that beauty is objective, so the onus falls on you to demonstrate this.

I have demonstrated it with so many examples, including exterior links, so the onus is one you to make an actual refutation of my central argument, not nitpick on my usage of syncopation which went over your head.

What value for beauty do you place on "Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who? What about Beethoven's 5th symphony? How does each value vary with the performance? If beauty is objective, it must be quantifiable, since independent observers must be able to reach the same conclusion.


Hey, numnut, you already stated that as well as everyone else, and I already responded DIRECTLY to that already.

Objective beauty is harmony, balance, symmetry. Subjective beauty is some internal subjective balance of thinking and feeling.

The onus is one you to show how there is no harmony in music, or harmony is not an essential feature of music.

Go ahead, argue how harmony is not an essential feature of music. Argue how harmonies and chords are not IMPLICIT in musical structure, regardless of the arrangment. Argue how you cant hit a tone without hitting a beat (my meaning of 'syncopation' that went over your head).

If you cant argue for the above, THEN YOU HAVE NO FREAKIN' ARGUMENT and your wasting my time.

If you dont argue the above in your next post, I'm going to ignore it.


BF
 
Oh my goodness - he doesn't even understand "I think, therefore I am"?

it's pretty simple to understand, and pretty simple to see it's incomplete.

He thinks it can be extended to mean that we can be absolutely sure of other people's existence?

No, your not paying attention, I said it's incomplete, and therefore the FULL MEANING of existence is not refrenced in that dull and tired philosophical argument from the 17th century

*shakes head in utter dismay....*

No wonder, your reading the Bubblefish in your head again. Try actually quering what I mean, try to see what I see. If you see only what you see, you will never see what I mean. Dig?

Snore, do we have any useful arguments coming FROM ANYONE??
 
In talking about whether we can be absolutely sure that the reality we percieve is real, I was just reminded of a paper that i read about in the New Scientist which concludes that:

[/FONT]

http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html

I remember coming across that a few y ears ago. I though it was very interesting, but not fully considered philosophically.

First off, such a simulation would be a perfect copy, which means it's the same thing as the original, just as digitized music is the same copy after copy, so there is no distinction and the model itself is a bit superficial. Secondly, it assumes that a post humanity would have the need for such recreation, instead of 'real creation', which leads to another higher argument I dont have time for.

BF
 
Completely the wrong way round, I can be absolutely sure about my existence, but I am sure about nothing with regard to objective reality.

That's truly then a sad result of your tired philosophy if true, but I dont believe you. Are you certain that the word at the end of this sentence is the word this? Come, are you? Are you just a little certain of that or absolutly certain of that?

If you dont address this question, then I wont address yours.


So OS012 basically says "if you don't know, you should admit that you don't know".


That's simply ONE presupposition of many found in the the six laws of dialectic. Hardly complete.

I suggested ages ago that this was your problem with Randi and Steorn. It's hardly novel, nor does it require a dialectic.

That is the beginning of dialectic, Einstein. When one does not know, one then ASKS QUESTIONS.



Notice the clash in that sentence bubb between "what he already knows" and "... is therefore unknown". What you are describing is implicit knowledge, not the unknown.

Then how come he didnt know the answer to his question then, Einstein?

Statements I know are true
Statements I know are false
Statements whose truth value I don't know
Any indication of how to translate that into something objective and useful?

sure

http://www.highintelligence.com

Reference please. I'm genuinely interested regardless of this discussion.

This piece of knowledge has been forwarded to me by a well known professor of neurobiology at a university here in so cal. PM me if you want to learn more.


I'm confused Bubb, if we do it naturally, do we need to formalise it?

YES, because although it's natural, it's not distinguished in our natural dialouge, there is no formal language for this natural process, that I am aware of at least.

Ternary logic may be useful in certain applications, although in electronics I understand it is not widely used.

Be honest. How much do you really understand about language, cognition, logic, and perception to make a statement like that which limits a field of mathematics and logic so much?

Understanding biological ternary systems would be interesting academically but you've provided no evidence that it is useful nor valid to formalise it onto a macroscopic scale for dialectic.

Agreed, I havent dont that, but i am in the process of doing that with a few others. And that isnt what this discussion is about, it's not about the ternary circuitry of the brain, it's about the theoritical structures of OS 012.

I can say that, from what has been told to me by experts in their fields, one of which is willing to be apart of this project and has sponsored two meetings about OS 012 with other academics and myself, that brain research does support much of what I am saying. I wasnt aware of that knowledge before OS 012, and was only aware of that knowledge this year. I am interested in exploring more of this over the coming year.

I can accept that I dont have the proof of that, it's not my proof to have. I do accept the validation, however, of the person who informed me of such truth. If your interested in private discussion about this, PM me.

The onus is still on you Bubb, not only if you want OS012 to be accepted (which you deny) but if you actually want real informed critique to work with.

SInce JREF, this discussion has turned into a full blown experiment for me, and I am not looking for your acceptance, nor validation, I already have validation where it matters to me at this stage. Believe what you will.

At present it appears like you're very much hear to preach and all you want to do is inflate your ego by having people ask you about stuff which you claim to know about.

Like I said, believe what you will. This is an experiment that in my eyes is going quite succesfully, and I am committed to staying in this discussion until you either agree, leave, or for some reason I am prevented from communicating.

At anytime, you are more than welcome to sign an NDA, or even have a private phone chat with me about all of this if you really want to know more about the project. Until then, your part of the show.


Toodles
BF
 
OK then, Bubblefish: here's one for you to try:

The first note of the tune is a D natural. Can you identify the tune and tell me what tempo it is being played at?

depends upon which song and arrangment your listening to, wiz.
 

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