How do you attempt to rationalise with the completely irrational?

[seer]

Ah! Is your statement about me true or false? How can you be certain? The short answer is that you cannot. No more than I can be certain you are male and in your mid sixties.

So you are not certain about what you just said. Are you just babbling then?

[JimL]

Again Jim, you have nothing else. Why is our survival a "good?" Besides our say so? I have demonstrated time and time again that you have no other justification.

That's because you keep confusing "good" with "moral good". If I desire chocolate ice cream it's because I think it's good, or because "I say so". But that has nothing to do with morality. And if I desire to live, to survive, to not suffer, it's because I think it's good, but that has nothing to do with morality. It's our actions, our behaviors towards each other that are considered to be either morally good or evil. If one is terminally ill and suffering to the point they can't bear it, then taking their own lives is not immoral, it isn't survival itself that is morally good.

[seer]

That's because you keep confusing "good" with "moral good". If I desire chocolate ice cream it's because I think it's good, or because "I say so". But that has nothing to do with morality. And if I desire to live, to survive, to not suffer, it's because I think it's good, but that has nothing to do with morality. It's our actions, our behaviors towards each other that are considered to be either morally good or evil. If one is terminally ill and suffering to the point they can't bear it, then taking their own lives is not immoral, it isn't survival itself that is morally good.

Jim, I don't care if you call it a good or a moral good it remains the same - our survival being a good is based on our say so. There is nothing else.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

So you are not certain about what you just said. Are you just babbling then?

Merely positing that in this medium of an internet board with pseudonymous contributors no one actually knows the real identify of anyone else. I would have thought that simple fact was glaringly obvious. Hence you could be a twenty-something living at home.

[JimL]

Jim, I don't care if you call it a good or a moral good it remains the same

Well you need to care otherwise your argument is confused and you don't understand what you're arguing about.

- our survival being a good is based on our say so. There is nothing else.

Which has nothing to do with morality. Our survival itself is neither good or evil in and of itself. People die every minute and no one considers that fact a moral evil.

[seer]

Merely positing that in this medium of an internet board with pseudonymous contributors no one actually knows the real identify of anyone else. I would have thought that simple fact was glaringly obvious. Hence you could be a twenty-something living at home.

You said a lot more than that: Is your statement about me true or false? How can you be certain? The short answer is that you cannot.That had nothing to do with my identity.

[seer]

Well you need to care otherwise your argument is confused and you don't understand what you're arguing about.

Which has nothing to do with morality. Our survival itself is neither good or evil in and of itself. People die every minute and no one considers that fact a moral evil.

Jim it doesn't matter - whether you call our survival a moral good or just a good either way it is only based on our say so. There is nothing else. Remember you said our survival was a good, even if that is not good in the moral sense it still is based on say so.

[JimL]

Jim it doesn't matter - whether you call our survival a moral good or just a good either way it is only based on our say so. There is nothing else. Remember you said our survival was a good, even if that is not good in the moral sense it still is based on say so.

Yeah, so is chocolate ice cream good based on our say so, but that has nothing to do with morality.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

You said a lot more than that: Is your statement about me true or false? How can you be certain? The short answer is that you cannot.That had nothing to do with my identity.

It does concerning your statement "he is a she". How can you be certain about that? How can I be certain you are an elderly male and not a 20 something still living at home?

[Stoic]

Then why say that you were speaking in terms of classic logic? It doesn't seem that paraconsistent logic allows for this contradiction either.

Paraconsistent logic doesn't necessarily allow for this contradiction. It merely allows for a contradiction.

That is merely a rhetorical device, I would like to see paraconsistent logic used in a real world situation. Since you brought it up I have been reading about it. First, there are well known philosophers who don't buy it, second I don't see the point. It seems more to do with how we use language than there being true contradiction in nature.

All logic is based on how we use language, as far as I can tell. Plato and Aristotle just formalized it.

In order to reason with each other, we need to accept the laws of logic as absolute for the duration of the conversation. If that's what you mean when you say the laws of logic are absolute, then I'm with you. But I get the impression that you want to claim that they must have been created by God, rather than by humans for the purpose of communicating with other humans. If so, you're going to have to prove it.

[seer]

Paraconsistent logic doesn't necessarily allow for this contradiction. It merely allows for a contradiction.

Where is the limiting principle then? I have been reading about this the last day of so, there doesn't seem to be one. So I don't know how you can claim the sun thing is not allowed for.

All logic is based on how we use language, as far as I can tell. Plato and Aristotle just formalized it.

That is true to a degree, I would say that the LONC is based on observation, that we find no true contradictions in nature. It is impossible for the sun example to be actualized. Therefore an absolute rule.

In order to reason with each other, we need to accept the laws of logic as absolute for the duration of the conversation. If that's what you mean when you say the laws of logic are absolute, then I'm with you.

If the LONC is a mere convention then there is no certainty or truth. We are playing a game with made up rules not necessarily connected to reality.

But I get the impression that you want to claim that they must have been created by God, rather than by humans for the purpose of communicating with other humans. If so, you're going to have to prove it.

You know that asking for proof is rather juvenile. I would say that a rational universe makes more sense having been created by a rational being than by the non-rational forces of nature.

[seer]

It does concerning your statement "he is a she". How can you be certain about that? How can I be certain you are an elderly male and not a 20 something still living at home?

Well I take you at your word that you are a female. Did you lie? Are you not certain that you are a female?

[Stoic]

That is true to a degree, I would say that the LONC is based on observation, that we find no true contradictions in nature. It is impossible for the sun example to be actualized. Therefore an absolute rule.

If the law of non-contradiction is based on observation, then you have to allow for the possibility that we could observe a counterexample in the future, however improbable that might be.

If the LONC is a mere convention then there is no certainty or truth. We are playing a game with made up rules not necessarily connected to reality.

If logic is based on how human's think, then the rules are connected to reality, since humans are part of reality.

As for certainty, I don't have a huge need for it. Induction gets us close enough to certainty for me to be comfortable.

You know that asking for proof is rather juvenile. I would say that a rational universe makes more sense having been created by a rational being than by the non-rational forces of nature.

I'm not sure what you mean by "a rational universe".

[seer]

Yeah, so is chocolate ice cream good based on our say so, but that has nothing to do with morality.

So again Jim, why is our survival a good?

[seer]

If the law of non-contradiction is based on observation, then you have to allow for the possibility that we could observe a counterexample in the future, however improbable that might be.

I would say no, unless you believe that the sun existing and not existing at the same moment is possible. I don't see how we could observe such a thing - it would be a rational deduction based on how we know the world works. I don't think such a counterexample could be seen or known.

If logic is based on how human's think, then the rules are connected to reality, since humans are part of reality.

But they are not made up rules so to speak. They are rules gleaned from what we know of nature. They need to be more than mere mere conventions.

As for certainty, I don't have a huge need for it. Induction gets us close enough to certainty for me to be comfortable.

How would you even get that far, induction being an informal fallacy.

I'm not sure what you mean by "a rational universe".

Intelligible universe.