QED
March 28th, 2008, search relatedRelated posts :: No related posts
Joseph Polanik wrote:
> >>you are claiming you can prove ‘I am really them’. I’m calling your
> >>bluff. state your case or fold up your tent.
>
> >I predict that you will once again similarly cast yourself as the one
> >who hasn’t been ignoring the arguments I’ve been giving.
>
> quite so. I have provided numerous objections which you have ignored.
>
> >Yet you continue your rhetorical tapdancing and maneuvering by
> >attacking the conclusion without addressing the premises.
>
> I attacked your conclusion *first*. that’s how modus tollens works as a
> refutation of your attempted modus ponens.
>
> you have a set of premises, P = {P1, P2, P3}, that together
> entail a conclusion Q.
>
> P1. I remain self-identical throughout all my perceptions.
>
> P2. If I know that I exist, I must know that there is something which
> remains identical throughout all my perceptions.
>
> P3. I have no evidence that anything remains identical throughout all my
> perceptions.
>
> Q. (therefore), I don’t know that I exist.
>
> thus you have your major premise: P -> Q
>
> you then have your evidence/argument that your premises, P, are true.
> you are a little vague here; but, we’ll get back to that.
>
> thus you also assert P.
>
> Then you conclude Q.
>
> schematically, your argument is a classic modus ponens:
>
> P -> Q
> P
> (therefore) Q
>
> my refutation is a simple modus tollens. I show that Q is
> self-contradictory or leads to a contradiction. in the present case I
> show that
>
> Q -> -Q
>
> having shown this contradiction, I have proven that at least one of your
> premises is wrong.
>
> how could that happen, you ask?
>
> you have indicated that ‘existence’ means ‘not nothingness’ — to say
> ‘I exist’ means only ‘I am not nothing’.
>
> you have indicated that ‘to know’ means ‘to prove by evidence-based
> logical deduction’.
>
> you have indicated that a skeptical conclusion as to my own existence
> has the form ‘I do not know that I exist’ (rather than the form ‘I know
> that I do not exist’).
>
> putting all these definitions together, it is clear that you are
> claiming that, from your set of premises, you deduce the skeptical
> conclusion, Q: I have not proven by evidence based logical deduction
> that I am not nothing.
>
> and, now, the rest of the story…
>
> Q -> -Q [Q implies its own negation] because any assertion of Q is in
> violation of the First Law of Reality: nothing unreal is self-aware.
left unaddressed and unquoted, my explicit argument against your first
law of reality in my last post as well as two posts before that:
“If the “reality” here is not phenomenal, then yet again you have failed
to provide any evidence for any such “reality.” But if the “reality”
here is phenomenal, then you have still failed to provide any evidence
of any identity within phenomenal “reality”.”
And as for your objection against the latter “identity” being a
necessary condition, you once again failed to address the explicit
argument that I gave in my last post as well as several posts before that:
>>> >>>>>1. I remain self-identical throughout all my perceptions.
>>> >>>>>2. Therefore, 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.
>>>
>>> >Step 1 is stated as a necessary condition of My existence - i.e., that
>>> >I remain self-identical throughout all my perceptions. Denying that
>>> >would be denying an identical referent for the identical first person
>>> >pronoun that I use to refer to myself at any point in my life (I was
>>> >born, I am now X, I will die).
>>>
>>> I-2 reject the first and third of the examples you give. I-2 know that
>>> I-1 was born and that I-1 will die;
>>
>> I-1 is a physical body, so given Descartes’ arguments in the First Meditation, how again do we “know” that there are any physical bodies at all? It’s astounding that at this point, after I’ve cited Descartes’ First Meditation numerous times now, you just glibly bring in I-1 without addressing his arguments there.
Here are two connected arguments from Hume and Descartes that I have
repeatedly given, directly challenging your “first law of reality,” and
yet you have repeatedly ignored them, and in this post even leave them
unquoted after 3 days in an obvious attempt to distract. I don’t get
distracted. Nor do I play games. But I do point out out when someone
plays games, so that anyone who Googles someone’s name in the future
will find posts indicating that they are a game player, not a serious
thinker.
> if I conclude Q, I am asserting self-awareness. I am asserting that I,
> the referent of ‘I’ have no evidence when I assert ‘I am not nothing’.
See above as to what that’s not the case, as well as why you are
attempting to avoid why that’s not the case.
> hence, it can not be the case that I am unreal. the fact that I can draw
> a conclusion, *any* conclusion at all, proves that I am real in
> some sense — that I am not nothing.
>
> [remember, for any x that is, x is not nothing. for you this universally
> attributable meaning ‘not nothing’ is carried by ‘exists’ or
> ‘existence’. for me the meaning ‘not nothing’ is carried by ‘real’ or
> ‘reality’.]
A reductio ad absurdam or modus tollens hypothesizes X in order to
disprove X. That has been argued repeatedly. It has been ignored repeatedly.
> it doesn’t matter what the conclusion is. it could be sacred or profane,
> profound or trivial, true or false, and so on.
>
> the fact that a conclusion, *ANY* conclusion, is drawn demonstrates that
> the referent of ‘I’ which draws the conclusion ‘I have not proven by
> evidence based logical deduction that I am not nothing’ has in fact
> proven that it is not nothing.
>
> nothing unreal can possibly conclude ‘I have not proven by evidence
> based logical deduction that I am not nothing’.
>
> think about it calmly and rationally: in the total absence of any
> reality (of any reality type whatsoever), in the total absence of any
> existent (of any mode of existence whatsoever), in the total absence of
> any being (of any mode of being whatsoever), what could possibly draw
> any conclusion about its own knowledge? the Nothing?
>
> could Heidegger’s the Nothing ever draw the conclusion ‘I have not
> proven by evidence based logical deduction that I am not nothing’.
>
> of course not. whatever draws this conclusion thereby proves that it is
> not nothing.
>
> so, the skeptical conclusion your set of premises produces is
> self-refuting.
>
> Q -> -Q
>
> hence, -P [at least one of your set of premises is wrong].
>
> and that concludes this lesson in the theory and practice of modus
> tollens.
>
> ===
>
> we could review your case for each of your premises to see if we can
> spot the false premise(s); or, having proven by evidence based logical
> deduction that ‘I am not nothing’ is true, we could move on to ‘what am
> I?.
>
> it’s your call.
I have now changed my mind about ending the thread, though I have not
changed my mind about ending the argument. Until you answer the
argument, this thread will continue to point that out. For posterity to see.
