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@ TheRobotLol: OTOH maybe he's just pointing that big words don't make you clever and make your point hard to understand for everyone else.

Nom

nomsheep wrote:@ TheRobotLol: OTOH maybe he's just pointing that big words don't make you clever and make your point hard to understand for everyone else.

Nom

True, but again, OTOH, it can also show more knowledge on the subject. Depends on the poster, and I don't know them.

TheRobotLol wrote:And the person wo uses the 'long words' is more impressive than you as it shows he actually knows something about anything instead of you

That actually doesn't show that at all, it just shows they know the words; knowing something and using it are two different things. Albatross (and many others) know these words, but we also know that in a layman's conversation they it is unnecessary, or even problematic, to use technical jargon. In a classroom or professional setting it makes sense and in fact would be necessary, but in a casual conversation among a very mixxed group in can be inappropriate, and knowing when to apply language and when not to is a form of knowledge as well.

TheRobotLol wrote:And the person wo uses the 'long words' is more impressive than you as it shows he MIGHT actually knows something about anything instead of you

Okay, edit'd.

Ahtman wrote:

TheRobotLol wrote:And the person wo uses the 'long words' is more impressive than you as it shows he actually knows something about anything instead of you

That actually doesn't show that at all, it just shows they know the words; knowing something and using it are two different things. Albatross (and many others) know these words, but we also know that in a layman's conversation they it is unnecessary, or even problematic, to use technical jargon. In a classroom or professional setting it makes sense and in fact would be necessary, but in a casual conversation among a very mixxed group in can be inappropriate, and knowing when to apply language and when not to is a form of knowledge as well.

That's true but if there are far more polite ways of asking someone to tone it down. Instead of saying "I bet you like showing off your e-peen!" You could simply ask for a more approachable version of his post. Or if you really know what it all means maybe you can try to translate it into layman terms yourself. I personally find it fun to translate and then explain/teach complex ideas. Then again that might just be the teacher in me speaking.

This is getting hard to follow, but in most cases, I quite enjoy

And Kovnik is saying it's discovered and that my hamster could discover math should it evolve enough)

Right?

Essentially, yes. And more, my position is that they would discover a system of math that would be directly translatable into ours (if he did the math correctly, of course). There would be no marked differences between the human maths and the hamster maths, as long as he has the same modules as us. If he misses some, then he won't have access (somethings just won't make sense to him, or he won't even see them) to some parts of maths.

@Kovnik. Surely if math is discoverable then once again using my hamster as an example even how he is atm unevolved, he could logically work out a rudimentary system of mathematics?

even if it's just lots of food and small amounts of food?

He needs what we call logical modules, or linguistic modules, to actually work out 'small amounts' from 'large amounts'. It's all based upon some perceptive processes, which is also why people with some types of aphasia also have the inability to actually discriminate amounts. But I think most higher forms of life (crows are often mentioned, so I would assume other very intelligent animals like dogs and chimps) have enough categorical discrimination to between small amounts and big amounts.

If anything it's always nice to see fellow philosophers on dakka, it reminds me that I'm not the only one who has made terrible career descions

It always is! (except if it's a freaking aristotelico-thomist. Then it's hell ^^)

I should note here that you'll need to use slightly more inter-disciplinary terminology to debate this one with me. I'm a historian by trade, which has some interchangeability with philosophy, social sciences, and anthropology.

Ok. Then let's start by noting that deconstructions, as far as epistemology goes, are still a very iffy territory. Like my Epistemo teacher said, "the de-construction, that's whatever Derrida is currently working on ". The process of deconstruction as evolved from Husserl's Épochè, or phenomenological reduction, and was at that time a very specific program to turn a subjective concept into an objective one. Heidegger popularized the idea of applying the same program to the development of ideas throughout history, in a very similar way to what Nietzsche did. Husserl refused completely what he saw as a justification of historicism.

The movement called often 'the hermeneutic turn of phenomenology' subsequently produced number's of deconstructions based on Heidegger's destruction.

Now, deconstructions do NOT necessarily imply that the concept at end is completely artificial, but mostly that we can assume that different factors will have forced the true and most natural meaning away from our perception (Heidegger claimed that the major factor of history was our escape from ourselves, and from our contingent characteristics)

Now, the rest of your post can simply be answered by going over this :

But when you start talking about 'underlying essences', you may have to quantify that one for me.

Simply enough, if meaning is the result of interpretation, that's because we entered in contact with what can very broadly be described as an essence. We cannot call it a sense-data, since for example the unity of an object isn't actually given through a single sense, but obtained through the synthesis of most senses, so it is called something a bit more metaphysical but it is in no way a characteristics that exists at the same level as, let's say, color. It isn't either a thing of aether, floating in another world. It's just the existential correlate of the fact that objects, to be objects, require unity, and that we have evolved in a way that is capable of discerning those objects.

The relative stance of all systems of interpretation, advanced at first by Russell, is nice and all, but it's arguing by the negative. We do not have a single example of a non-consequential system of logic. Can it be said that it could exist? Yeah. But we have been talking about this for over a century, with as yet not a single system offered as an example. If anyone can give me a single example of a system of math that doesn't work accordingly to the law of non-contradiction, go ahead, you'll have disproven my entire stance. (let's note, it would have to be non-hazy logic, as non-contradiction works only in binary systems).

Laws of mathematics are never anything more than theories, and 'theories are not collections of facts, they are models of the world that are to some extent capable of being tested by the facts’ to steal a quote from a well known social scientist.

I'd say it's both false and true (yeah for hazy logic!). Laws of mathematics are initially incredibly basic stuff. We are talking about the basic axioms (like the commutativity of addition and the non-commutativity of substraction). They, again, aren't theories, they are the stuff that allows us to potentially (looking at you Alba) understand each other when we talk theorizing.

The true part is that they aren't facts. They don't say anything about the world, they allow us to say something about the world (which is defined by Wittgenstein as the totality of facts). They make up the frontier of what is possible to express meaningfully, and what we can't express because it's nonsensical.

The on the hilarious part :

it has nothing to do with the fact that you're coming off as a pretentious arse by dropping Wittgenstein into a discussion on a miniature wargaming forum

So I was right, you resent anyone who actually uses the knowledge they have acquired through higher studies. Yes, Wittgenstein is about the hardest author I can think of (Whitehead might contest him for that spot). Yes, I would have a hard time vulgarizing this to the point where it would be understandable by 16 years old (which is why we don't teach him in College).

obfuscating language intended to alienate the vast majority of other users, not so much.

So who's playing at the e-psychology game now?

I love how you put that in scare-quotes, as if cultural theory isn't one of the most important humanities disciplines, certainly post-war. I think you just became not worth bothering with.

Well, who's striking his ego now? I put quotes because I do not know what 'cultural studies' refer specifically to, other than a very broad area of humanities. Here we have 'social science'. To me 'cultural theory' could very well be stuff like afro-american culture, gender studies or post-modern studies, or even a sub-course in communication.

What is an object, what is a background? You can't adequately answer these questions without recourse to semiotic analysis, and if so that relies on human agency (or not, depending on your viewpoint). Not all discrimination is instinctive, either.

An object is what distinguishes itself from a background through perceptive or intellectual discrimination. A background is the mass of undiscriminated sense-data. While you are right, intellectual discrimination being mostly enacted (like active judgment), perceptual discrimination is pretty mush entirely instinctual (Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception is the reference here). This definition of background comes from the Gestalttheorie, and I can only refer to Goldstein and Ehrenfels for an appropriate demonstration of how its definition stems from the analysis of biological functions.

and if so that relies on human agency (or not, depending on your viewpoint).

Again, yes. If we don't exists, no one talks about "1+1=2". But if we don't exists, the continental landmass of North America still exists. It just isn't named. It's waiting to be...
wait for it...
wait....
..
'discovered'

asimo77 wrote:

Ahtman wrote:

TheRobotLol wrote:And the person wo uses the 'long words' is more impressive than you as it shows he actually knows something about anything instead of you

That actually doesn't show that at all, it just shows they know the words; knowing something and using it are two different things. Albatross (and many others) know these words, but we also know that in a layman's conversation they it is unnecessary, or even problematic, to use technical jargon. In a classroom or professional setting it makes sense and in fact would be necessary, but in a casual conversation among a very mixxed group in can be inappropriate, and knowing when to apply language and when not to is a form of knowledge as well.

That's true but if there are far more polite ways of asking someone to tone it down. Instead of saying "I bet you like showing off your e-peen!" You could simply ask for a more approachable version of his post.

My comment in no way excused or endorsed the language used to respond, but only addressed the notion that just using technical language automatically showed superior knowledge.

asimo77 wrote:I personally find it fun to translate and then explain/teach complex ideas. Then again that might just be the teacher in me speaking.

I do as well, but you'll notice that wasn't what was happening here.

Albatross wrote:

Muhr wrote:
Actually, this is where I must come in. I for one have personally found Kovnik's addition to the thread to be one of the most interesting and thought provoking, but then again I understood him. Don't disparage somebody simply because what they say goes over your head. If he 'dummed' himself down then he would be guilty of patronizing you.

...aaaand, here comes the fan-club.

I'm at first sorry to respond to this but I feel the need to tell you, that not dropping an internet issue might be considered immature.
Especially since you've not only been flaming in a discussion with one user but also start attacking others later on.
Next to that it's a bit repetitive to read about how you understand what he is saying, instead of continuing the topic discussion.

As for staying on topic:

reading what everyone had to say and how well they constructed their believes I still can't help
but 'feel' (I have discalculy (and dyslexia ) to begin with so don't try and argue my illogical approach)
that it is discovered. Being very informed about the matter since I have no solid (or barely any) understanding
about maths, I cannot construct my argument, or more likely to be called, opinion.
Some other people have mentioned that you first have to state whether other live species apply the same mathematical
structures. Although I don't believe we will in the nearby future construct any device or 'invent' any theory/way to communicate
with either animals or new found alien species, I still think of that to be a valid argument.

On another note, I've enjoyed reading the stuff that's posted and hopefully more interesting posts will come!


S.

Good thing this guy didn't enter the discussion, he'd bury us all with jargon.

http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US#/watch?v=rLDgQg6bq7o

My comment in no way excused or endorsed the language used to respond, but only addressed the notion that just using technical language automatically showed superior knowledge.

Let's note that I never said it did. I apologized about any arrogance perceived in my 1st posts. I offered to give clarifications, but was told that everything was well understood.
Then I was again insulted.
I think he could've shown the decency to simply say that we don't agree, and that we don't speak to the same audience. Said audience then could've simply made the choice of whether or not follow the thread of my answers.

He is, after all, the only one accusing me of trying to 'obfuscate' the issue.

Kovnik Obama wrote:

My comment in no way excused or endorsed the language used to respond, but only addressed the notion that just using technical language automatically showed superior knowledge.

Let's note that I never said it did.

And I never you said you did. RobotLol did and I responded to him.

Good thing this guy didn't enter the discussion, he'd bury us all with jargon.

But his pronunciation ... !!!

And I never you said you did.

I know, I just wanted it to be said. It does note an interest for the subject, but yes, high brow vocabulary is no assurance of the speaker's integrity. The opposite is true too which proves it's just not a good way to interpret an intent.

@Ahtman or Asimo77. In that case provided you understand what's being said here, could you dumb it down for me (and others) please?

Whilst I understand roughly what is being said said most of this is beyond me (mechanics =/= philosophy) and i'm quite interested.

@kovnik: can you say who you are quoting as it is easier to follow your posts that way. thanks.

And switching from my hamster who we have now established is a dumbass. My rat (who falls under your higher forms of life category) and dog have never displayed any from of counting/ numeracy and i have watched both for many many hours, the closest is if you have two dog treats and take one away then they hunt for the other one.

Rats are clever animals and will soon work their way out of a maze, learn where the food comes from etc but no counting.

That would be because (either they don't need it yet though that could be argued for x amounts of reasons) it's primarily a human creation. maths only exists because we do. but we do not only exist because maths does. maths has only developed as far as it is due to us having the spare time to philosophize and develop it beyond ten. we no longer have to fight for survival so we develop more complex ways to understand the world around us.

On another point the black hole theories and the theory of relativity( the one if you go fast enough time slows) and things we can't touch, feel or get to yet are exactly that theories and guesses based off things and behaviors we have observed here. What if we get to that speed and time doesn't slow? or we reach that black hole and it just wants a hug?

Nom

Nom

nomsheep wrote:

@kovnik: can you say who you are quoting as it is easier to follow your posts that way. thanks.

And switching from my hamster who we have now established is a dumbass. My rat (who falls under your higher forms of life category) and dog have never displayed any from of counting/ numeracy and i have watched both for many many hours, the closest is if you have two dog treats and take one away then they hunt for the other one.

Rats are clever animals and will soon work their way out of a maze, learn where the food comes from etc but no counting.

That would be because (either they don't need it yet though that could be argued for x amounts of reasons) it's primarily a human creation. maths only exists because we do. but we do not only exist because maths does. maths has only developed as far as it is due to us having the spare time to philosophize and develop it beyond ten. we no longer have to fight for survival so we develop more complex ways to understand the world around us.

Being clever doesn't happen on all levels ; your rat might be very bright at navigating a maze, probably because it has an awesome spacial memory. That doesn't involve counting (at least not until you get to higher degrees of intellect and start counting the 'left turns' and the 'right turns'. More than likely, you rat just has a good instinctual memory of his physical movements, which allows him to retrace correctly the turns. Also, let's note that us counting consciously the turns isn't necessarily an objectively better method than that of 'counting with his body', like the rats does. Higher intellectual functions aren't necessarily more effective. More than likely the rat is better off just with his spacial memory, if all he ever wants is to navigate mazes.

So they are brighter than hamsters (I guess), but that only applies to certain capacities.
The dog, I don't know. I was just mentioning him because he is one of the most easily recognized higher forms of animal intelligence. He might be able to discriminate between one, two and many, or just one and many, and it might simply be hard to locate a action that shows that well enough. He might just not have the capacity. I honestly don't know about that.
The crow example is a strong one. We know they can 'count' up to three, but not four, because they will instinctively learn to run away after the third gunshot of a hunter, if the hunter has a three-shot rifle, but won't learn it if the shooter shoots repeatedly 4, 5, 6 times in between his reload. Later studies have shown that they have a high degree of categorical perception, and that they mostly use it to publicize the size of found carcasses, so that there won't actually be more crows coming to eat then the amount of available food.

Corpsesarefun wrote:As far as I can see dogma (a frequent and respected poster) and alby (a... frequent poster) agree here.

For the record I agree with them too.

Me three.

Me three.

But... but... we come from the same town!

Kovnik Obama wrote:

I should note here that you'll need to use slightly more inter-disciplinary terminology to debate this one with me. I'm a historian by trade, which has some interchangeability with philosophy, social sciences, and anthropology.

Ok. Then let's start by noting that deconstructions, as far as epistemology goes, are still a very iffy territory. Like my Epistemo teacher said, "the de-construction, that's whatever Derrida is currently working on ". The process of deconstruction as evolved from Husserl's Épochè, or phenomenological reduction, and was at that time a very specific program to turn a subjective concept into an objective one. Heidegger popularized the idea of applying the same program to the development of ideas throughout history, in a very similar way to what Nietzsche did. Husserl refused completely what he saw as a justification of historicism.

The movement called often 'the hermeneutic turn of phenomenology' subsequently produced number's of deconstructions based on Heidegger's destruction.

Now, deconstructions do NOT necessarily imply that the concept at end is completely artificial, but mostly that we can assume that different factors will have forced the true and most natural meaning away from our perception (Heidegger claimed that the major factor of history was our escape from ourselves, and from our contingent characteristics)

I have a degree already under my belt, am studying at postgraduate level, and took an A level in Philosophy, so I'm relatively certain I'm not stupid. Yet I'm still having difficulty understanding precisely what you're getting at. To break down this post, you essentially said (correct me if I'm wrong):-

Breakdown of Kovnik's post wrote:Some chap called Heidegger attempted to historicize (or make into/generate history on, for those not familiar with the term) the development of ideas. (Now this sounds to me a bit whiggish; the concept of history being one of continuous evolution and improvement, where the current is always better than the past). Another chap called Husserl wrote a book called 'Epoche', which called him on it, and disproved him. Other books and works on it have been created which also attack him, and this school of thought is collectively known as 'the hermeneutic turn of phenomenology'. It is primarily made up of 'deconstructions', which are like disproving something, but somehow don't quite.

Close? Onto the next chunk:-

Now, the rest of your post can simply be answered by going over this :

But when you start talking about 'underlying essences', you may have to quantify that one for me.

Simply enough, if meaning is the result of interpretation, that's because we entered in contact with what can very broadly be described as an essence. We cannot call it a sense-data, since for example the unity of an object isn't actually given through a single sense, but obtained through the synthesis of most senses, so it is called something a bit more metaphysical but it is in no way a characteristics that exists at the same level as, let's say, color. It isn't either a thing of aether, floating in another world. It's just the existential correlate of the fact that objects, to be objects, require unity, and that we have evolved in a way that is capable of discerning those objects.

The relative stance of all systems of interpretation, advanced at first by Russell, is nice and all, but it's arguing by the negative. We do not have a single example of a non-consequential system of logic. Can it be said that it could exist? Yeah. But we have been talking about this for over a century, with as yet not a single system offered as an example. If anyone can give me a single example of a system of math that doesn't work accordingly to the law of non-contradiction, go ahead, you'll have disproven my entire stance. (let's note, it would have to be non-hazy logic, as non-contradiction works only in binary systems).

This one appears to be a bit more challenging......:-

Jargon

No more luck I'm afraid. When you talk about existential correlates, non-consequential systems of logic, and unities of objects, I genuinely have no idea what you're on about. I understand the meanings of objectivity and subjectivity, sense-data, empiricism and rationalism, and so on, but what you're saying just appears as a paragraph of unrelated words on a page.

Kovnik Obama wrote:

Me three.

But... but... we come from the same town!

I'm actually from Kamloops, BC but I'm living in Quebec City for about 3 months despite the fact I can't speak a lick of French.

TheRobotLol wrote:

Albatross wrote:

Muhr wrote:
Actually, this is where I must come in. I for one have personally found Kovnik's addition to the thread to be one of the most interesting and thought provoking, but then again I understood him. Don't disparage somebody simply because what they say goes over your head. If he 'dummed' himself down then he would be guilty of patronizing you.

...aaaand, here comes the fan-club.

Well then at least he has people agreeing with him. Thats a couple more than you

I agree with Albatross.

Except I'd like a bit more discussion on this point:

Albatross wrote:I find it odd that you cling to absolutist statements about truth, and ignore the near-century of work that came after, pretty much destroying it.

If you're referring to quantum mechanics, I'm not convinced that the fact that we don't know what is going to happen by default makes them unknowable. We just haven't invented/discovered the maths (you guys are turning me British) to figure them out yet.

Actually there is a principle that states some things are inherently unknowable, the uncertainty principle. In short it states that in some cases (like position and velocity) the more precisely you know one value the less precisely you know the other due to inherent quantum effects.

I know about the uncertainty principle, I'm just questioning whether or not it's accurate. I'm thinking that perhaps, in time, the uncertainty principle will be looked back on in the same light as the sun orbiting a flat earth.

There is quite a bit of proof it's accurate, it's just one of those weird quantum things that boggles the mind.

Corpsesarefun wrote:There is quite a bit of proof it's accurate, it's just one of those weird quantum things that boggles the mind.

It's accurate according to our current understanding, I agree.

I'm just saying that it was once our (read: humanity's) understanding that the universe was a giant machine that moves a bunch of glass spheres around. You see what I'm getting at?

Cheesecat wrote:I'm actually from Kamloops, BC but I'm living in Quebec City for about 3 months despite the fact I can't speak a lick of French.

Cool, I hope my compatriots are nice to you, the dumb ones can be pretty harsh on English-only speakers... and the emotional ones... ?

oki, this is going to be a long one.

Ketara wrote:
Some chap called Heidegger attempted to historicize (or make into/generate history on, for those not familiar with the term) the development of ideas.

Essentially yes. His main example was how we had obfuscated the meaning of the word 'being'. He then shows how in his opinion the obfuscation took place. He stated that that same process (the process being that of forgetting the relation between the subject and the idea, and only taking the idea as a separated event from the person) happened on all levels of intellectual history, and was more or less the the very sense of the current of history.

Now he identified two processes who would allow him to confidently find the true meanings hidden throughout our current ideas, the 1st being the hermeneutic circle (let's skip this one), the second being the destruction. That second process would later be renamed deconstruction.

(Now this sounds to me a bit whiggish; the concept of history being one of continuous evolution and improvement, where the current is always better than the past).

Absolutely agreeing with you there. It reminds me of Hegel, without the whole spirituality part, or Marx. Now ideas might get obfuscated, true, but I definitely don't think there is one reason for that, or one way to fix it. Its historicism, all and simple.

Another chap called Husserl wrote a book called 'Epoche',

Nah, the Epoche is a process (or a fiction) theorized by Husserl, who was Heidegger's teacher. It's essentially a philosophical fiction stating that, as long as I try to analyze objectively MY subjective experiences, and don't initially give them an ontological status (like an idealist would), then I might very well, along plenty of errors, actually identify something which is objective for all (an essence). For Husserl, it's a philosophical form of psychological analysis. Heidegger took that as an inspiration, and applied it to just about everything he spoke about. Husserl was shocked, but by the time he learned about it (he apparently wasn't reading much of his student's essays), Heidegger was a celebrity, well placed with the Nazi party, and Husserl was Jewish. He quickly lost his teaching licence, and Heidegger was named rector of Friedbourg Uni.

Other books and works on it have been created which also attack him

Yes deconstruction (or it's most radical tenets, like the ultimate relativity of all interpretation) can and are attacked by just about every author disliking post-modernism in philosophy.

and this school of thought is collectively known as 'the hermeneutic turn of phenomenology'.

Yes. The turn being that from a 'philo-psychology' to a 'psychology of history' (taken as a cohesive whole). The principal authors being Heidegger, Gadamer, Ricoeur and Derrida

It is primarily made up of 'deconstructions', which are like disproving something, but somehow don't quite.

Yes and no. They are more akin to attempts at historical psychoanalysis (but of History as a whole).

Close?

Now I'll just go over these terms quickly :

existential correlates : read 'essence'. It's basically the same meaning. Its what other's in this thread try to express by saying 'humans enact maths, so we created it''. The fact that our existence is necessary for these essence to 'exist' (read here, be ideas in a mind) doesn't change the fact that we do not create those essences. The term de-construction and construction maybe more revealing : the brick in the wall doesn't exist unless we as humans exists, doesn't mean its stuffiness (actually a word used by Husserl) doesn't exist (here as clay). We use some form of basic material in the construction of meanings, those are the essence, we take them from the objects ; what we end up with, after conceptualization, are ideas.

Non-consequential systems of logic (or math) : a non-consequential system of math would be, basically, a system that doesn't work through causality. Admittedly, its a radical example, but it's literally impossible to actually think of it. And not because we are limited, but because the very idea is meaningless. Its a limit case, but since Russell also argue through limit cases, I feel authorized.

unities of objects : most higher forms of life perceive the world instead of simply reacting to it. Perception works through one (very broad) mechanism explained by a psycho school called the Gestalttheorie (or theory of forms), which is basically the process of 'shaping' objects, separating them from a cohesive background, through works of the different senses (best example, vision rely principally on spacial and image memory, psychologically, and on movement to 'reveal' objects. Our body does this first and foremost, which is why I speak of quantities first appearing on an instinctual level.

A mathematical fact is considered to be the mathematical paradigm. However, paradigms are always theories, as has now been proven, therefore there is no such thing as a mathematical fact, only a mathematical theory. If one refers to mathematical fact as an axiom(something cannot be proved and is assumed to be true), then one would assume it to be the current mathematical paradigm as things stand, which would make it a theory, something you just claimed mathematical facts cannot be.

I don't think we have the same meanings for paradigm. To me it's the 'limiting laws' enabling a scientific (or other) discourse to evolve in a certain theoretical ensemble. The foundation laws of a formal discipline would by definition be a priori immutable, since they would be the enablers of the discourse.

Logical Laws like
Propositional identity : p [implies] p
Third man : p [or] -p
Non-contradiction : -(p [and] -p)
Double negation : p [implies] - - p
De Morgan's Law : -(p [or] q) [imlies] (-p [and] -q)

are enabler's of meaning ; without them you couldn't understand this text, or any, or anything. They necessarily transcend paradigms. These laws all have basic mathematical correlates (as is evidenced by names like 'double-negation').









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Actually there is a principle that states some things are inherently unknowable, the uncertainty principle. In short it states that in some cases (like position and velocity) the more precisely you know one value the less precisely you know the other due to inherent quantum effects.

This is a case of opinion. Quantum theoricians cannot even agree on whether or not Quantum physics breaks classical logic, or if it's just a limit case. They can't even agree on whether or not it's actually unknowable because there is no knowledge to be found, or if it's simply events that happens so fast they cannot physically be registered properly.

I have a chat log of a dispute between two experts on the question. Is it possible to attach something here?

asimo77 wrote:
That's true but if there are far more polite ways of asking someone to tone it down. Instead of saying "I bet you like showing off your e-peen!" You could simply ask for a more approachable version of his post. Or if you really know what it all means maybe you can try to translate it into layman terms yourself. I personally find it fun to translate and then explain/teach complex ideas. Then again that might just be the teacher in me speaking.

You can, but you should also understand that when you use technical terminology in a lay situation there's a good chance there's going to be someone who will take it as condescending, or elitist.

Believe me, I catch myself doing this with regard to politics all the time, on this board and in real life, and people that don't know me have been offended. I had a long, and historic series of arguments with whatwhat for basically that reason.


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Kovnik Obama wrote:
Yeah, it's why Wittgenstein spoke about logical and mathematical axioms as 'the borderline' of factual truth of the world. Basically, they delimits the world of the nonsensical and the meaningful, but themselves only have the barest minimum of content.

I've spent the last summer translating basic logical axioms to geometrical pathways according to a process described in the Tractatus. I don't have them on my computer tho, but I might try and find a scanner tomorrow. They would probably help to illustrate my point.

I know what you're saying, I'm quite familiar with Wittgenstein, he was a major component of my undergraduate thesis in philosophy. However, I reject the sort of qualitative comparison regarding degrees of content when speaking to individual truths.


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Zyllos wrote:
For Mathematics to truly be a discovered entity, another intelligent being needs to be found and studied for how they quantify their environment. Logically, we would think they would use the same rules that we follow, thus would show it to be a discovered discipline.

Well, not really. This is what I was getting at when discussing the notion that discovery and invention differ only in terms of emphasis. One way of illustrating that is the comparison of the following sentences:

"Edison invented the light bulb."

"Edison discovered the light bulb."

Both are correct.

dogma wrote:"Edison invented the light bulb."

"Edison discovered the light bulb."

Both are correct.

Yes, but 'invented' can also be given a more radical sense, as in 'created from nothing', in the case of intellectual works. It's that specific sense that I oppose.

Ahtman wrote:

asimo77 wrote:

Ahtman wrote:

TheRobotLol wrote:And the person wo uses the 'long words' is more impressive than you as it shows he actually knows something about anything instead of you

That actually doesn't show that at all, it just shows they know the words; knowing something and using it are two different things. Albatross (and many others) know these words, but we also know that in a layman's conversation they it is unnecessary, or even problematic, to use technical jargon. In a classroom or professional setting it makes sense and in fact would be necessary, but in a casual conversation among a very mixxed group in can be inappropriate, and knowing when to apply language and when not to is a form of knowledge as well.

That's true but if there are far more polite ways of asking someone to tone it down. Instead of saying "I bet you like showing off your e-peen!" You could simply ask for a more approachable version of his post.

My comment in no way excused or endorsed the language used to respond, but only addressed the notion that just using technical language automatically showed superior knowledge.

asimo77 wrote:I personally find it fun to translate and then explain/teach complex ideas. Then again that might just be the teacher in me speaking.

I do as well, but you'll notice that wasn't what was happening here.

Oh I didn't mean to imply your comment was doing anything of the sort I was using "you" in the most general sense. I suppose "one" would have been a better word to use. I was also just kind of expanding on the posts that are quoted is all. Basically all I was saying was "everyone be nice m'kay!"


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dogma wrote:
You can, but you should also understand that when you use technical terminology in a lay situation there's a good chance there's going to be someone who will take it as condescending, or elitist.

Believe me, I catch myself doing this with regard to politics all the time, on this board and in real life, and people that don't know me have been offended. I had a long, and historic series of arguments with whatwhat for basically that reason.

That's a fair point, I guess I'm more willing to chalk this one up to getting excited about talking about something you know. Of course if it happens a lot you probably do have a case of egomania or something. Also is "whatwhat" some euphemism of some sort? Or am I missing something?

asimo77 wrote:
That's a fair point, I guess I'm more willing to chalk this one up to getting excited about talking about something you know. Of course if it happens a lot you probably do have a case of egomania or something. Also is "whatwhat" some euphemism of some sort? Or am I missing something?

A guy that used to post in the OT.

Ah before my time probably.

On the subject of quantum physics

From mdreed for AskScience, expert in experimental cryogenic quantum physics:

Quantum mechanics is mostly the same as classical physics (e.g. F=ma), except in extreme circumstances where it diverges wildly. In those circumstances, like when things are very cold and isolated, you will have particles exhibiting bizarre behaviors like being in a superposition of states (where for example one could be many different locations simultaneously) or becoming entangled with other particles (so they stop acting as two separate things, and instead act as a single thing). It turns out that if you were to build a computer which used these effects, it could be very, very powerful at certain tasks like factoring numbers or simulating physics.

Osob (I actually don't know anything about that one) replied

This is not true. Consider as an example two electrons. Classically (if they were spinning tops), then the state space would be |++>, |+->, |-+>, and |--> (where I'm using + to mean spinning one way and - to mean spinning the other, and |xx> is a ket). Quantum mechanically, the state space is a|++> + b|+-> + c|-+> + d|-->, where a, b, c, and d are complex numbers

No clue what most of that means. Mdreed replies

The fact that things can be in superpositons or even be entangled with one another has no measurable effect in the vast majority of physical situations. This is for a variety of reasons, mostly having to do with the fact that things are big, hot, and incoherent.

Then LuklearFusion, a quantum programmer replies, in support :

What we call mixed states are the result of us ignoring correlations with another system.

Also, in classical mechanics pure states are not your only option. You can have classically mixed states which account for a lack of knowledge of the observer, or imprecise measuring equipment. The same is true of quantum mixed states, they are a result of a lack of classical knowledge.