Catholic Scientist responds to me:
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You don't know if cheese exists or not?
Of course I know that cheese exists.
But you just said you didn't. Straggler asked you if you thought his concept existed and you said you didn't know. The concept was cheese. But now you say you do know that cheese exists in direct contradiction to your previous statement that you didn't know.
Were you lying before?
Does the term "meta" hold any meaning for you? Have you read
Godel, Escher, Bach? There is the discussion that we have that is directly connected to the topic and then there is the discussion that we have regarding the discussion. That latter is known as the "meta-discussion." You are conflating the "I don't know" of the former with the "I don't know" of the latter.
That is, you do know what your opinion is regarding cheese. What you don't know is that cheese is what is being discussed. Thus, when Straggler asked you your opinion regarding his undefined concept, he was asking you a direct question about knowing about cheese but you responded as if you were being asked a meta-discussion question about knowing that cheese was being discussed.
That is, there is the question: Do you believe in concept X?
Then there is the question: Do you know what concept X is?
You were asked the former question. The answer to that question is, "Yes," but you said, "I don't know." That's because you answered as if you were asked the latter question. They are not the same.
Since you were being asked a direct question when the only information you had was the meta-discussion, the proper answer was, "I can't say what my opinion regarding X is until it is defined."
This would be a meta-meta-discussion. I daresay that it's a bit of a linguistic equivalent of Russell's Paradox.
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Regardless of my knowledge of the definition of "it", if I do not know if it exists or not, then I'm agnostic by definition.
So you're agnostic about cheese? You just said you do know that it exists and now you say you aren't sure. Which is it?
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But I didn't know what it was so I, quite literally, did not know if it existed or not.
But you just said you do know that cheese exists and now you say you weren't sure. Which is it?
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Once the concept became defined, I had the knowledge of whether or not it exists. What's ridiculous about that?
That when you were asked a direct question about whether you thought cheese existed, you said, "I don't know." That's what's ridiculous.
Again, you were asked a direct question but you answered as if you were asked a meta-question. They are not the same. You were asked, "Do you believe it exists?" but you answered as if you were asked, "Do you know what it is?"
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For a concept like cheese, since I know that it exists then I'm not agnostic towards it. And if someone is talking about cheese and I don't know that it is what they are talking about, I can't be agnostic about it because I'm already not agnostic towards cheese. So I have to be in some undefined position until I know what they're talking about.
Yes. But rather than saying, "I can't tell you what my opinion is because I don't know what you're talking about," you instead responded, "I don't know." Since the question you were asked was, "Do you believe in concept X," your answer is applying to your belief in X, not your understanding of what X is.
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My problem with this is that this undefined postion doesn't exist.
Huh? You knew what Straggler was talking about and yet you still said, "I don't know," indicating that you weren't sure about the existence of cheese?
How can anybody have any opinion at all, even the precious "I don't konw" that RAZD wants everyone to have, regarding a concept that hasn't been defined?
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If I don't know what they're talking about then I simply lack the knowedge of whether or not exists
So you don't know whether cheese exists? But you just said that you do. Which is it?
You continue to conflate the question of "Do you believe that X exists?" with the question of "Do you know what X is?" You were asked the former. You answered the latter.
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The basis for making my claim of agnosticism for its existence was that I didn't know what "it" was
Precisely! And yet, rather than saying, "I don't know what you're talking about so I cannot tell you whether or not I believe in X," you said, "I don't know." Well, Straggler was talking about cheese and thus your response was that you didn't know if cheese existed.
That's ridiculous. Clearly, you do know. You've just said that you do. And yet, when you were asked a direct question about it, you said, "I don't know."
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So what's the problem with that?
The problem is that you didn't answer the question that you were asked. You answered a completely different question.
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And what's wrong with my argument? Don't I, in fact, lack the knowledge of whether or not an undefined conept exists?
That's the entire point! But you weren't asked if you lacked the knowledge about the undefined concept. You were asked if you believed in the undefined concept.
You were asked, "Do you believe in X?"
You answered as if you were asked, "Do you know what X is?"
Those are not the same question.
Rrhain
Thank you for your submission to
Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.
Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.
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