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Author Topic:   No Witnesses
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(3)
Message 125 of 215 (659023)
04-11-2012 11:28 PM
Reply to: Message 124 by crashfrog
04-11-2012 5:36 PM


Yes, now you're getting it!
Then "it" is profoundly silly, and no-one talks like that except you.
And yet, despite that logical ambiguity in language, people are able to communicate completely effectively with it ...
I prefer the English language to "it". Now, in the English language as spoken, I would not "communicate completely effectively" the fact that I have seen a cartoon of the Loch Ness Monster by saying that I have seen the Loch Ness Monster. People would not, in fact, understand what I was saying. The English language does have some permissible ambiguities, but this is not one of them.
... to the point that almost nobody bats an eye at asking their blind friend "hey, are you seeing anyone?"
"I can still see her face", says the poet of his lost love, despite that face having oh-so-dramatically cast itself down the bottom of a well, or some such, and therefore completely hidden from his eyes. And I doubt you would object in any other context.
Sure --- the only context in which I'd quibble with customary metaphorical uses of the word "see" is if we're discussing whether something can literally be seen, in which case pointing out that something can be seen in a metaphorical sense is beside the point.
"Can Stevie Wonder see?" someone asks me. I do not reply "yes" on the grounds that he has a girlfriend and is therefore "seeing someone". That would also not be "communicating completely effectively". Conversely, if I replied "no", no-one would take me as meaning that he is unable to get a date.
You're just being a tiresome asshole, and it's beneath the level of completely enjoyable assholeness we've come to expect from you.
As you are an interested party, I suggest that we leave that one to a jury of our peers.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 124 by crashfrog, posted 04-11-2012 5:36 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 127 by crashfrog, posted 04-12-2012 12:26 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 126 of 215 (659024)
04-11-2012 11:34 PM
Reply to: Message 121 by Rrhain
04-07-2012 6:07 PM


Meloneis gen. Nov., a new epipsammic genus of rhaphoneidaceae (bacillariophyceae).
They don't mean that it's "new" in the sense that it's just evolved and they know this because they've watched it happen, they mean that it's "new" in the sense that no-one had previously discovered it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 121 by Rrhain, posted 04-07-2012 6:07 PM Rrhain has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(2)
Message 128 of 215 (659110)
04-12-2012 1:35 PM
Reply to: Message 127 by crashfrog
04-12-2012 12:26 PM


Um, no, that's clearly false. "Seeing someone" is a common expression for "dating" regardless of one's eyesight ...
Which is why I did not in fact object to this colloquialism.
This whole thing started because you took it upon yourself to "correct" several people who asserted that using an IR visualizer constituted "seeing" in IR. Nobody flinches at the notion that millions of people saw Janet Jackson's exposed breast during Super Bowl XXXVIII, even though Reliant Stadium seats only 71,000 people.
Nor to those.
As I say, I have no objection to the sloppy and metaphorical ways of the English language --- I am, after all, a poet. What I would object to is if by a fallacy of ambiguity someone took these metaphorical usages to bear on the literal question --- if, for example, someone maintained that since a blind man was "seeing someone", he could see and was therefore not blind.
"Language" is the antecedent of the pronoun "it" in the sentence you quoted. I would have expected a speaker of English to know that. You might want to schedule some grammar classes before you crown yourself the arbiter of the English language, since you appear to know fuck-all about it.
But as you used the word "it", "it" apparently refers not to the English language but to a patois of your own invention in which it is correct to say that one has seen the Loch Ness Monster based on the fact that (in English as it is spoken) one has seen a cartoon of the Loch Ness Monster.
Exactly. Because despite the inherent ambiguity in language, people are able to communicate effectively with it ...
Only if "it" is the actual English language, rather than your bizarre creole.
Normal people can communicate effectively because they are capable of distinguishing between metaphorical and literal uses of the word "see", and so do not suppose that if Stevie Wonder is "seeing someone", he is therefore able to see and so not blind. But it is this very distinction between colloquial metaphorical and technical literal usage that you seem to be trying to chip away at, or indeed smash into tiny pieces with your Mighty Sledgehammer Of Nonsense.
Well, ok. Who thinks Dr. Adequate is still being funny or amusing? Who thinks he isn't? If people are really getting a charge out of this I'm perfectly happy to keep going, but doesn't it seem like we've bored everybody away?
It does not in fact seem like that, since I note that there are still people "cheering" my posts. Perhaps their lack of participation otherwise is due to the fact that they are content to stand back and applaud me as I do what I do so very well --- namely offering a fool any amount of rope he chooses and a pamphlet, written in words of few syllables, on how to tie a noose.
Really, after you asserted that I have seen the Loch Ness Monster, we're done for all practical purposes. The only remaining questions are how much longer you will assert this position and how much fun the rest of us can get out of watching you do so.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 127 by crashfrog, posted 04-12-2012 12:26 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 129 by crashfrog, posted 04-14-2012 8:26 AM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 130 of 215 (659306)
04-14-2012 11:59 AM
Reply to: Message 129 by crashfrog
04-14-2012 8:26 AM


Wait, so now you don't object that an IR visualizer allows you to see in IR?
I don't object to the sloppy metaphorical usage. I object to people conflating it with accurate literal usage. As I said:
Dr A writes:
As I say, I have no objection to the sloppy and metaphorical ways of the English language --- I am, after all, a poet. What I would object to is if by a fallacy of ambiguity someone took these metaphorical usages to bear on the literal question.
By what basis can you claim that you've seen Mickey Mouse ...
I don't, see my previous posts.
... but not the Loch Ness Monster?
I can claim not to have seen the Loch Ness Monster because I haven't seen the Loch Ness Monster.
The English language has a certain amount of flexibility, but not so much that I can claim to have seen the Loch Ness Monster. I just can't. 'Cos I haven't.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 129 by crashfrog, posted 04-14-2012 8:26 AM crashfrog has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 136 of 215 (660382)
04-25-2012 3:22 AM
Reply to: Message 132 by angletracks
04-24-2012 9:07 PM


Re: What I See
If a process cannot be repeated, or measured in its singular occurrence, and if there is in fact no validated model to support it, can it be considered a fact?
Well yes.
Let's say that John Smith is dead. Do we know what killed him? No (let us say for the sake of argument). Can we repeat it? Nuh-uh, not unless we can figure out (a) what killed him (b) a way to raise the dead. Was anyone around to see it happen? Possibly an extremely ingenious murderer, but he's not talking.
Given all this, can it really be considered a fact that John Smith is dead? Yes. Either that or he's really really good at holding his breath. A process, an explanation, an observation, a repetition, a "validated model" ... none of these is considered necessary to establish the brute fact.
(In fact, if you think about this, it would kill science stone dead if this was a requirement, since necessarily we find out the facts first and explain them second. If we couldn't acknowledge them as facts before we'd explained them, we'd never get started. In order for us ever to figure out how John Smith died, we must first acknowledge that he's dead, or we wouldn't know that there was a question to investigate.)
Now in the case of life, we have evidence that once there wasn't and couldn't have been life on Earth, and that now there is. That's the brute fact.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 132 by angletracks, posted 04-24-2012 9:07 PM angletracks has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 143 by angletracks, posted 04-26-2012 2:53 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 146 of 215 (660522)
04-26-2012 3:36 PM
Reply to: Message 143 by angletracks
04-26-2012 2:53 PM


Re: What I See
Well, quite so. But you asked:
If a process cannot be repeated, or measured in its singular occurrence, and if there is in fact no validated model to support it, can it be considered a fact?
To which the answer is "yes". Our puzzlement over the nature of the process does not prevent us from knowing as a fact that it occurred.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 143 by angletracks, posted 04-26-2012 2:53 PM angletracks has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 152 of 215 (660535)
04-26-2012 5:13 PM
Reply to: Message 150 by angletracks
04-26-2012 4:35 PM


Re: What I See
If one is willing to consider that there may be realities that extend beyond the material, then a similar tweaking of natural processes by a divine mind can be inferred quite easily.
And we needn't stop there. I wonder how I lost my spectacles. Now, if one is willing to consider that there may be magic fairies, then the theft of my spectacles by magic fairies can be inferred quite easily. As Smacco's Rozar has it: "Let's multiply entities, because that's fun!"

This message is a reply to:
 Message 150 by angletracks, posted 04-26-2012 4:35 PM angletracks has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 157 of 215 (660545)
04-26-2012 10:32 PM
Reply to: Message 154 by Chuck77
04-26-2012 7:35 PM


If macro-evolution went on trial who would the witnesses be that it indeed does happen? If it's really happening as to how the ToE says it does then this shouldn't be so hard. That the evolutionists can't even agree on this says something.
That was so obscurely expressed that I can't even tell what you're trying to be wrong about.
Chimp and man there is to much seperation and it doesn't fit with the other groupings as neatly as the canine or feline classification.
But there is in fact very little separation. You can find much more genetic distance between species that creationists will admit are related. Compare, for example, the genetic differences between chimps and humans with those between members of the cat family, and there's no contest.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 154 by Chuck77, posted 04-26-2012 7:35 PM Chuck77 has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 164 of 215 (660652)
04-28-2012 4:52 AM
Reply to: Message 163 by Chuck77
04-28-2012 4:32 AM


Establishing "facts" to fit the theory maybe. If you cannot provide examples of micro-evolution happening with evidence of witnesses then how is it factual? Or is it just assumed and speculated?
Once again, I have to daydream about how one of you guys would function as a defense attorney. It amuses me.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 163 by Chuck77, posted 04-28-2012 4:32 AM Chuck77 has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 176 of 215 (660739)
04-29-2012 4:16 AM
Reply to: Message 175 by Chuck77
04-29-2012 4:08 AM


Macro-evolution is a cow, slowly over long periods of time, becoming a whale.
Have you ever witnessed anything like that happening?
Obviously no-one has ever witnessed long periods of time. People do not live for long periods of time.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 175 by Chuck77, posted 04-29-2012 4:08 AM Chuck77 has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 211 of 215 (663623)
05-25-2012 4:48 PM
Reply to: Message 209 by Rrhain
05-23-2012 3:18 AM


Now, if you want to complain that this isn't an example of witnessing a new genus, that's fine. Let's have at it.
Didn't you read my post? It's not "new" in the sense that it's just evolved, it's new in the sense that it's just been discovered. They're not claiming anything else.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 209 by Rrhain, posted 05-23-2012 3:18 AM Rrhain has not replied

  
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