For Reality Check

[Sparko]

This last part is key. Parmenides still asks "Do these properties differ by being or non-being?"

eh?

[moreta]

Something tells me poor RC blew a fuse trying to keep up with the last few pages.

I don't know about him, but mine sure did. Just when I was thinking I should learn more about philosophy...along comes this thread.

[Xru]

I don't know about him, but mine sure did. Just when I was thinking I should learn more about philosophy...along comes this thread.

They are all blowing smoke . . . they don't have any idea what each other is saying . . .

[Sparko]

They are all blowing smoke . . . they don't have any idea what each other is saying . . .

semantic correspondence is negatively affected by neurological indicators of static comprehension.

[moreta]

Yep. Blowin' smoke.

[rogue06]

Yep. Blowin' smoke.

No this is a common problem. Various disciplines often have their own terminology and jargon that can be all but indecipherable to the outsider layman. Look at the confusion that still surrounds the word "theory" as used by scientists as opposed to the average person.

Robert Bakker, the flamboyant paleontologist has complained about the confusion this causes the public for years:

"Add to that an outspoken opposition to the habit of many colleagues to speak in the esoteric jargon of science — an academic language that loses and alienates many of the legions of dinosaur fans, both young and old. “There are some people who think you should never speak in plain English. Now I am really against jargon — absolutely against. It’s often a smokescreen for sloppy thinking. There’s a friend of mine who works on fossil turtles and speaks in sentences like ‘the fossa orbitalas is displaced in a derived condition rostrally.’ All it means is that the eye socket is near the front of the head. Why not say, ‘The eye socket is near the front of the head’?”

[moreta]

I don't know that I'd completely agree that jargon and shop talk is "often a smokescreen for sloppy thinking". Without any immediate research, and going strictly off memory, I believe it originated in the middle ages with the rise of the guilds. The language they used to refer to and describe their proprietary processes was deliberately obscured to protect it from being stolen. It was, in a very real sense, a code.







But still blowin' smoke.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Well Parmenides is hard to grasp and to this day, we still wonder what he meant exactly by what he wrote. However, the discussion has raised up for RC the five ways of Aquinas. It would be amusing to see him deal with any one of them.

[Sparko]

Leutenant, try opening the subspace channels using the photonic phase emitter array. If that doesn't work, use the quantum gravimetric array to tunnel a baryonic pathway through to the covalent ambient neurological synaptic traces.

[Sparko]

Well Parmenides is hard to grasp and to this day, we still wonder what he meant exactly by what he wrote. However, the discussion has raised up for RC the five ways of Aquinas. It would be amusing to see him deal with any one of them.

so since it is obvious that different objects had more than just "existence" as their property, how did Permendides explain such things? How did he explain the difference between a drum and air, for example?

[ApologiaPhoenix]

What is there to explain? For Parmenides, the idea that these are all different is an illusion. All is one. There is only being and change cannot occur since that would be a change by being or non-being.

[Sparko]

What is there to explain? For Parmenides, the idea that these are all different is an illusion. All is one. There is only being and change cannot occur since that would be a change by being or non-being.

then he was obviously wrong since we can observe both change and difference in the world. Merely calling it an "illusion" is no solution since even then an illusion would have to either have being or non-being and still would not explain the difference in the various illusions. Why didn't people just dismiss him as a loon?

[ApologiaPhoenix]

then he was obviously wrong since we can observe both change and difference in the world.

We also say we observe motion, but what of Zeno's Paradox? Have you written out a refutation of it? You could say you observe the material world, but Berkeley would say the material world isn't real and he says that based on empirical evidence.

Merely calling it an "illusion" is no solution since even then an illusion would have to either have being or non-being and still would not explain the difference in the various illusions.

If it has non-being, then we are talking about that which is not. If we are talking about being, then that which is, an illusion, does have being. In a sense, you have argued that it is a real illusion. Parmenides thanks you.

Why didn't people just dismiss him as a loon?

Because he put forward sophisticated arguments for his position. Plato and Aristotle both dealt with him. In fact, Plato's dialogue "Parmenides" is the only debate where Socrates loses in the Platonic writings. Try and read it yourself.

[Sparko]

We also say we observe motion, but what of Zeno's Paradox? Have you written out a refutation of it? You could say you observe the material world, but Berkeley would say the material world isn't real and he says that based on empirical evidence.

well zeno's paradox is only a problem if there ISN'T such thing as actual motion but discrete "jumps"

If it has non-being, then we are talking about that which is not. If we are talking about being, then that which is, an illusion, does have being. In a sense, you have argued that it is a real illusion. Parmenides thanks you.

well I was arguing from his perspective, but he is welcome. The problem is that even illusion shows differences and change and if illusion IS real being, then he still has not explained anything by merely saying difference and change is illusion.

Because he put forward sophisticated arguments for his position. Plato and Aristotle both dealt with him. In fact, Plato's dialogue "Parmenides" is the only debate where Socrates loses in the Platonic writings. Try and read it yourself.

But that would require me to actually study something. And since it's all illusion, it's not worth my illusory time

[ApologiaPhoenix]

well zeno's paradox is only a problem if there ISN'T such thing as actual motion but discrete "jumps"

Then give the answer to it. It does not refute a position to just say it is ridiculous. Keep in mind many atheists do this with the Courtier's Reply.

well I was arguing from his perspective, but he is welcome. The problem is that even illusion shows differences and change and if illusion IS real being, then he still has not explained anything by merely saying difference and change is illusion.

He would ask you what he has to explain.

But that would require me to actually study something. And since it's all illusion, it's not worth my illusory time

Plato didn't think it was an illusion. Neither did Aristotle. Still, both of them thought the argument was serious and considering there are still many monists in the world, it is still worth taking seriously.