Anything Follows from a Contradiction
April 21st, 2008, search relatedRelated posts :: The Oddness of the OD :: Mystery without mysticism III :: Modus Tollens vs Reductio Ad Absurdum :: “honesty”
Anthony Crifasi wrote:
>Joseph Polanik wrote:
>>Anthony Crifasi wrote:
>>>>>1. If I know that predicates are attributable to me, then I must
>>>>>know that I exist.
>>>>>2. If I know that I exist, I must know that there is something
>>>>>which remains identical throughout all my perceptions.
>>>>>3. But there is no evidence that anything remains identical
>>>>>throughout all my perceptions.
>>>>>4. Therefore, I don’t know that I exist.
>>>>>5. Therefore I don’t know that predicates are attributable to me.
>>>>>Both antecedents (in #1 and #2) are negated by modus tollens.
>>>>As before, you have reached a self-refuting conclusion. the fact
>>>>that you draw conclusion 5 proves ‘I am capable of drawing
>>>>conclusions’. this statement contains a predicate. which proves that
>>>>I attribute predicates to the referent of ‘I’.
>>>which is the antecedent in premise 1. which therefore leads to an
>>>endless logical paradox, unless and until you address premise 3.
>>>which you haven’t done yet.
>>there is no logical paradox; just a blatant contradiction that is
>>removed by rejecting one or more of your premises.
>>I have addressed your premise 3. I have expressed my skepticism of it.
>>let me summarize and extend my critique of this premise.
>>1: it is *your* premise; and, therefore, *you* need to support it. you
>>have not told us anything about your attempts (if any) to look for
>>evidence. what was your evidence detection criteria? did you do a
>>complete census of a certain domain or did you just search a
>>representative sample of that domain?
>Not just me, Joe. Hume tried too. So have a multitude of philosophers
>since Descartes. Apparently Joseph Polanik is the first in modern times
>to have found positive evidence for whatever entity it is that
>supposedly remains identical throughout all human perception. Care to
>enlighten us, as well as western history?
no; that’s not my job. it’s up to you to justify your negative
conclusion. I’m merely expressing my skepticism of your argument.
you are in the position of the european zoologist who reported the
results of a survey of the swan population 300 years ago. “I found no
evidence of black swans. therefore (by means of evidence-based logical
deduction), I conclude that there are no black swans.”
>>2: you treat the absence of evidence of Q as evidence of absence —
>>as proof of -Q for purposes of perpetrating a modus tollens on premise
>>2.
>>if this is allowed, anyone can prove anything using the Crifasi
>>manuver.
>>A -> B
>>claim there is no evidence of B
>>(therefore [and this is the Crifasi maneuver]) -B
>>(therefore) -A
>>like this:
>>If JFK is dead then there is something which remains identical
>>throughout all my perceptions.
>>there is no evidence that anything remains identical throughout all my
>>perceptions.
>>therefore [and this is the Crifasi maneuver], it is not the case that
>>there is something which remains identical throughout all my
>>perceptions.
>>therefore JFK is alive
>Absence of evidence of Q means that Q is unsupported by evidence.
yes; but, that’s all that it means logically. you take the further step
of saying (for purposes of perpetrating a fallacy) that the absence of
evidence of Q justifies your conclusion, -Q. some of these conversions
may turn out to be correct. the conversion (from no evidence of P to the
conclusion of -P) turned out to be true for phlogiston. would you care
to make a prediction as to the magnetic monopole?
the point of this is that you’ve built a contradiction generator into
your logic. just claim that some proposition, P, implies a preposterous
conclusion, Q, for which you have no evidence. then claim that the
absence of evidence of Q is proof of -Q. then conclude -P by modus
tollens.
as the JFK example shows, the Crifasi maneuver allows one to prove
anything. why? because it has a built in contradiction; and, as any
elementary logic text will tell you, from a contradiction anything
follows.
Joe
–
Philosophy is, after all, done ultimately in the first person for the
first person. — H-N Castaneda
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http://what-am-i.net
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