Question.... (Processes of Logic)

crashfrog responds to me:

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Logical error: Argumentum ad populum. Surely you're not about to argue that things are true simply because many people say so, are you?

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If the question is the way a person is percieved,

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Wait just a parboiled minute. Don't be disingenuous. You weren't talking about the way I was being perceived. You were talking about the way I actually am. You were using your perception and the seeming perception of a few others as indicative of an actual trait I have.

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And it is extremely disingenuous of you to claim that you seriously thought I meant that the various dialects of English are "different languages," especially since my statement is concerning how they have changed over time due to their isolation from each other.

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Then I can only ask, why would you bring this up when I asked you to provide evidence of "completely separate languages", if not to show an example of completely separate languages?

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Because I thought you had more integrity than what you are displaying now. I decided to use the example of the splintering of English to show the process at the beginning. Would you have been happier if I had chosen French and Spanish, both originating in Latin? Humans, left to their own devices, create separate languages because the speakers become isolated and thus, they evolve. We can see this in the various dialects of English, which is early in the splintering but is being delayed due to the advent of mass communications, but it is more apparent in other language groups such as the Romance languages.Are you really trying to say that you didn't understand that?This is why I claim you are being dishonest, crash. You're not that simple and yet here you are claiming to be.

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Why are examples of slightly divergent dialects at all relevant to a discussion of potentially "completely separate languages", if there are such things?

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Because it shows the process of how langauges change over time. I don't happen to have my copy handy, but there's a wonderful text book by Finegan, Language: It's Structure and Use, that goes into this process of how languages mutate over time when populations of speakers become isolated from each other.Did you really not understand the point of how languages change over time due to the isolation of communities of speakers from each other?

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This coming from one of the most duplicitous persons I've seen on here.

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Have you noticed a kind of "feature creep" in your posts? First you start with relatively tame assertions - "You might not be honest", "Not everybody agrees with Chomsky", etc. - and in a few posts, you're casting highly superlative dispersions - "Chomsky is full of shit", "You're the most duplicitous", etc. This is the kind of thing that makes it hard to lend credence to your assertions. That, and the question thing.

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Oh, I notice it. I am very conscious of me doing it. It is in response to your elevation of the hostility of your own posts. Or don't you recall this post of yours: Message 4, July, 2003, Posts of the Month: You even had the temerity to point out that you knew you were insulting me: So let me see if I understand your argument:1) When you insult me, it's just the actions of a calm, rational person.
2) When I respond in kind, it's because there's something psychologically wrong with me.Seems you have a double standard going on, crash.Do I need to go back through the other posts to point out just how many times you have called my integrity into question before I said anything in kind in response?Hint: If you don't like it when I do it, perhaps you should refrain from doing it in the first place.

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And most importantly, have you read Chomsky? He abandoned Deep Structure in favor of Logical Form and Phonetic Form.

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Woo-hoo, so you finally looked it up. Took you a couple posts, but I guess your ignorance was beginning to show.

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(*chuckle*)If that's what you need to tell yourself. Have you considered the possibility that I was waiting for you to go look it up and find it for yourself?By the way, you made yet another jab: "Your ignorance was beginning to show."For someone who seems to be off put by "feature creep," you sure don't seem to have a problem with doing it, yourself. But then again, I've noticed that you tend to jump to the ad hominem commentary immediately, so I guess it isn't so much feature "creep" as it is a constant conversational technique of yours.

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Do you also claim that apples only exist "symbolically" since the only way we can talk about apples is through the symbology of langauge?

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Perhaps. We certainly can't be sure. And I'm certainly not the one claiming that, just because I can point to examples of "apples", that there's some kind of perfect Platonic Apple underlying reality.

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Logical error: Equivocation.Platonism in mathematics is not the same as Platonism in philosophy.

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And that's basically it. Examples of "number" in the real world, no matter how much a community of speakers may agree on which number to use, have nothing at all to do with an independant physical reality of number.

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How can they not? You're saying that if I show you an apple, it isn't a real apple.

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Since we think about most everything in language (the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is false in any strong sense), this must mean that everything is merely "symbolic" and not real.

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No, it just means that we can't use examples of symbol use to prove the existence of whatever the symbols refer to, as you keep doing.

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No, that's what you are doing. I've been the one telling you to drop the symbology. You're the one that said that if we call the number of fingers on your hand "six," that somehow means a physical process has changed the number of fingers there.You keep going back to the symbol when I keep referring you to your hand.

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So why did you decide to play semantic games that by simply calling the number of fingers on your hand "six," that actually changed the number?

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Oh, probably because you asked me about a hundred times and I decided to see what you would say.

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In other words, you just wanted to play a game.Do you now understand why I call you duplicitous? That you have no integrity. No intellectual honesty?

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"No" apparently wasn't a good enough answer for you, but "Yes" didn't turn out to be, either. I can only speculate as to your reasons why that would be so.

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Because neither answer explains anything. You need to explain why.Besides, you're incorrect. "No" is a good enough answer for me. The problem is that you then immediately followed it up with a statement indicating that you didn't believe it:No, if I think about it hard enough, I can't change the number of fingers on my hand, but if I think about calling them "six," then there really are six.You can understand my confusion: You say one thing and then immediately contradict it. So which one is it? Can you change the number of fingers on your hand by thinking about it or not? The act of calling it "six" is simply thinking about it. If calling them "six" actually makes them six, then you are saying that by simply thinking about it, you can change the number of fingers on your hand. But you just said that no, you can't change the number of fingers on your hand just by thinking about it. So which is it? Can you or can't you?

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You brought up deep grammar simply because it was an argument of Noam Chomsky as if that made it irrefutable.

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No, you brought it up when your only reason for it's dismissal was because of a lack of universal agreement among linguists.

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Why do I have to keep reminding you of your own arguments?

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Because you apparently don't remember the actual history of the conversation.Who brought up Chomsky? You or me?That's right, you did.And what did you then say about Chomsky?That's right, this: So please tell me, how is this not an example of the argument from authority?

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I mean, you can point out the differences between dialects of english, but no matter how much the UK and the US diverge they're never become different in fundamental ways, in the way that English and Russian are different, for instance. Part of speech in English, no matter what coast, will always be determined positionally, not inflectionally.

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For now. The development of Modern English from Middle English involved grammatical shifts. I can recall a theatre professor of mine who is bringing up the question of the need to translate Shakespeare into Modern English. It's been 400 years and the language just isn't used the same way. It's not just a question of lexicon or cultural references that are no longer understood or a consequence of the great vowel shift. Grammatical structure is different, too. As time goes on, it is becoming more and more difficult for modern audiences to understand the text. We may not be at the point where we can say that the English of Shakespeare is like, say, the English of Chaucer, but we're getting there.Besides, part of speech in English is often determined via inflection, too. "House" pronounced with /s/ is a noun. "House" pronounced with a /z/ is a verb. And then there are the pronouns: "I" is subjective, "me" is objective, "my" and "mine" are possessive.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

crashfrog responds to me:

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You don't get other numbers out of it, but you still get numbers. And the number you get, 0, is part and parcel of the nothingness.

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Doesn't sound like you get numbers, plural - just a number, singular, zero. Forgive me but that seems like an important distinction.

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Not in my opinion. Number is part of existence and things only have one number. You don't have both five and six fingers on your hand.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

crashfrog writes:

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As a humerous "proof" of my position, I offer this demonstration of the mutability of number:

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Except the leprechauns aren't the same size. Depending on which way you're going, you're either distributing one to all the others or stealing a little from them to make a new one.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Do you really believe that dishonesty is a trait that any person could be relied upon to objectivly identify in themselves? It seems to me that if we're going to call each other names about who is trustworth or who is not, then the people to ask are objective observers. I'm sure that's what you thought you were doing - but the separation of Received British and American is not indicative of a process of a language splitting into two "completely separate languages." So, I can only ask again, what does that have to do with "completely separate languages"? No, because French, Latin, and Spanish aren't "completely separate languages" either. As you say later, they're Romance languages, and highly related. What I don't understand is how somebody could seem to know so much about language in another thread could make such a non sequiter. I didn't "feign ignorance", I was literally ignorant of the reason a learned person would make such a mistake. I'm sorry if you took that for dishonestly, but I really didn't know why you had done that. Oh, you mean that time you presented a story that was so outrageous I asked you for proof, and you told me I was "insulting your integrity"? I guess it is outrageous to ask for evidence of unusual claims, after all. Unless it's you who's asking, of course. But I guess you'll suffer no claim of yours to be called into question.I'm sorry if that's not behavior I'm prepared to accept as "honest". Oh? You deny having ignorance? You claim to have ultimate knowledge about all potential subjects? Wow, you must get tired of being right all the time. Mathematics is a subset of philosophy, so Platonism in one is Platonism in the other.Even if it's not, you've hardly made a case for the difference - you've proposed the existence of mathematics independant from our conception of it. Sounds like Plato's Cave to me. Just as you keep going back to the symbol when I ask for the real, underlying number. Can you explain why it's only your posts I respond to in this way? Could it, perhaps, have anything to do with the effrontery of your so-called "debating" technique? (I sense, however, that I already know your answer to this.)After all, if I'm such a bad guy, the proof should be all over this board. You. I brought up deep grammar, and then you brought up Chomsky. You said "not everybody agrees with Chomsky", and I said that didn't matter.You turned it into an argument of authority, not me. You're the one who brought authority into it. Not me. There's not a grammatical structure in Shakespeare's works that you couldn't use today. So no, the grammar isn't different. Just word use. It hasn't gotten any harder to read Shakespeare in the past hundred years. If anything it's like the language "refuses" to change in such a way as to deny English speakers access to Shakespeare's work.And anyway, what does Shakespeare have to do with the history of English and its dialects? If you're under the impression that the words of Shakespeare represent the English as it was spoken every day, then, except where Shakespeare deliberatly writes colloquialisms, you're very much mistaken. In the same way that actors speak differently onstage than in person, theatre language represents a dialect all its own. That's a legacy use, not a new form. So what?

crashfrog responds to me:

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You were using your perception and the seeming perception of a few others as indicative of an actual trait I have.

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Do you really believe that dishonesty is a trait that any person could be relied upon to objectivly identify in themselves?

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I guess I'm guilty of once again giving you too much credit, crash. Here I was thinking you were a shrewd, savvy person who was playing games consciously. In other words, you knew you were not being honest and were, in fact, using that dishonesty for some purpose.

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It seems to me that if we're going to call each other names about who is trustworth or who is not, then the people to ask are objective observers.

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When did we agree they were objective?

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I decided to use the example of the splintering of English to show the process at the beginning.

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I'm sure that's what you thought you were doing - but the separation of Received British and American is not indicative of a process of a language splitting into two "completely separate languages."

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Yes, it is. It is precisely that. Speakers of English in America have been separated from speakers of English in the UK. Thus, the language starts to mutate in different ways. As long as there is sufficient interplay between the two communities, those mutations can travel between the two communities and maintain a fair amount of intercomprehensibility. But remove that connection and eventually the two languages will be so disparate that a speaker of one won't be understood by a speaker of the other.

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Would you have been happier if I had chosen French and Spanish, both originating in Latin?

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No, because French, Latin, and Spanish aren't "completely separate languages" either. As you say later, they're Romance languages, and highly related.

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(*blink!*)Did you really just say that? French, Latin, and Spanish aren't completely separate langauges? You mean a person who speaks French can be understood by a person who speaks Spanish?You seem to be playing yet another game, crashfrog. I guess I have to ask: Are you aware of this or is it something you don't realize you're doing? Of course, that just leads me to wonder if your response to that question will be yet another layer of the game.That is, you seem to be saying that "completely separate language" requires absolute differentiation in every linguistic aspect.

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Are you really trying to say that you didn't understand that?

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What I don't understand is how somebody could seem to know so much about language in another thread could make such a non sequiter. I didn't "feign ignorance", I was literally ignorant of the reason a learned person would make such a mistake. I'm sorry if you took that for dishonestly, but I really didn't know why you had done that.

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Again, I seem to be giving you too much credit. And I am sensing yet another game being played. You were "literally ignorant" and yet you seem to have no trouble tossing off people like Chomsky. Given our past discussions over language, I had come away with the impression that you had some knowledge of the subject.So now I'm left confused...do I believe that previous impression or do I believe you now when you say you were "literally ignorant."I'm left with the feeling that you're playing a game. That you're not interested in actual discussion.

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Seems you have a double standard going on, crash.
Do I need to go back through the other posts to point out just how many times you have called my integrity into question before I said anything in kind in response?

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Oh, you mean that time you presented a story that was so outrageous I asked you for proof, and you told me I was "insulting your integrity"?

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But that's just it, crash. It wasn't incredulous. You claimed it was, but that's just part of the game.

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I guess it is outrageous to ask for evidence of unusual claims, after all.

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Now you're just lying, crash. I offered to show you direct evidence. You balked. Just come on down. I'll show you the cat. You can come meet the owners. They'll tell you, themselves. Of course, if you come with this attitude that you seem to be presenting, they may decide to refuse, but we might be able to come to a compromise.But failing that, I even directed you to a documentary regarding animal intelligence that displayed grey parrots counting. You pretty much blew that off.In short, crash, you do nothing but play games. And when you get backed into a corner, you start spouting ad hominem commentary in what I can only guess is an attempt to deflect attention from the issue at hand.

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Unless it's you who's asking, of course. But I guess you'll suffer no claim of yours to be called into question.

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I'm sorry if that's not behavior I'm prepared to accept as "honest".

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Then why did you engage in it.Did I or did I not invite you to come here and see the cat for yourself?Was or was not your response that I should send the cat to you?Now think about this, crash: I told you that it was not my cat, and yet you responded by saying that I should somehow send the cat to you. And now, because it is not my cat to send, you hold it against me as if somehow I am refusing to provide you evidence.I'm sorry if that is not behaviour I'm prepared to accept as "honest."It smacks of game-playing.

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For someone who seems to be off put by "feature creep," you sure don't seem to have a problem with doing it, yourself. But then again, I've noticed that you tend to jump to the ad hominem commentary immediately, so I guess it isn't so much feature "creep" as it is a constant conversational technique of yours.

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Oh? You deny having ignorance?

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No. Since I sense you're about to play yet another game, I'll be specific: I do not deny ignorance in general. However, I deny that I am ignorant of my intentions when I make my posts. I am very aware of when I decide to use phrases such as "Chomsky is full of shit," "You're the most duplicitous person," etc.

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You claim to have ultimate knowledge about all potential subjects? Wow, you must get tired of being right all the time.

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Guess my hunch was correct. You were playing games. You've just changed the subject. First, we were talking about ingorance about my "ramping up the heat," as it were in my posts. Now you've suddenly shifted to something like, "Well, if you claim you're not ignorant, that must mean you're saying you're not ignorant about anything."Why do you play so many games, crash? Why not simply stick to the subject?

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Platonism in mathematics is not the same as Platonism in philosophy.

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Mathematics is a subset of philosophy, so Platonism in one is Platonism in the other.

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Incorrect. Mathematics is a superset of physics. While logic is part of both philosophy and mathematics and philosophical logic deals with the "predicate calculus," mathematics is not philosophy. The two fields often cover similar aspects, but mathematics spins off into areas so completely unrelated to philosophy that to call math a "subset" of philosophy is to make the terms meaningless.That's why you get a BS in Math, not a BA.

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Even if it's not, you've hardly made a case for the difference - you've proposed the existence of mathematics independant from our conception of it. Sounds like Plato's Cave to me.

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Yes, but Plato talked about the "essence" of the objects...a "perfect" version of the objects which all of the objects we see are pale reflections thereof. That isn't what mathematicians mean.

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You keep going back to the symbol when I keep referring you to your hand.

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Just as you keep going back to the symbol when I ask for the real, underlying number.

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That's because we're communicating via language. Since I haven't managed to perfect that telepathy thing just yet, I'm going to have to use a symbol to convey to you the object to which I am referring. What you need to do, then, is recognize that the symbol is just a convenience for communication, not the actual object to which I am referring.You seem to be hung up that I cannot write about the number five without actually using the word "five."

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In other words, you just wanted to play a game.
Do you now understand why I call you duplicitous? That you have no integrity. No intellectual honesty?

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Can you explain why it's only your posts I respond to in this way?

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That assumes that it's only to my posts that you do this, but my guess is it's because I don't crumple to your ad hominem comments.

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Could it, perhaps, have anything to do with the effrontery of your so-called "debating" technique? (I sense, however, that I already know your answer to this.)

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Could be. My opinion is that you don't like the fact that I don't cower before you.

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After all, if I'm such a bad guy, the proof should be all over this board.

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It is. Or do you not notice your ad hominem comments to the various creationists? Message 4: Big Bang vs. God: What a nice way to end a post to a brand new member.Then there was your treatment of Jet: Message 53: How does evolution explain the gaps?It would seem that if somebody rubs you the wrong way, you'll be quite quick to lash out.

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Who brought up Chomsky? You or me?

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You. I brought up deep grammar, and then you brought up Chomsky. You said "not everybody agrees with Chomsky", and I said that didn't matter.

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(*blink!*)You didn't just say that, did you? You bring up "deep grammar" and then expect us to believe you weren't bringing up Chomsky?

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You turned it into an argument of authority, not me. You're the one who brought authority into it. Not me.

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Did you or did you not say the following:

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Grammatical structure is different, too.

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There's not a grammatical structure in Shakespeare's works that you couldn't use today. So no, the grammar isn't different. Just word use.

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It's only still useable because people still quote from Shakespeare so much. Modern English uses a Subject-Verb-Object word order. Shakespeare consistently inverted the word order in order keep the meter. And there are other aspects, too:Henry the Sixth, Part 1, Act 3, Scene 2:Now where's the Bastard's braves, and Charles his glikes?"And Charles his glikes"? That's not grammatically correct in modern English.And let's not forget that in Shakespearean English, there is still the "thou/thee" pronoun set.At the time Shakespeare was writing, English was right in the middle of its transition from Middle to Modern.

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As time goes on, it is becoming more and more difficult for modern audiences to understand the text.

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It hasn't gotten any harder to read Shakespeare in the past hundred years. If anything it's like the language "refuses" to change in such a way as to deny English speakers access to Shakespeare's work.

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As I said above, people keep using Shakespeare so there is still attempts to keep a connection to it. But your basic premise is still not correct. It is becoming harder and harder to understand.

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And anyway, what does Shakespeare have to do with the history of English and its dialects?

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"He's only the most important author in the English language."What does Shakespeare have to do with it? He was writing right when the language was shifting from Middle to Modern. The Great Vowel Shift hadn't quite finished (thus, many of the puns in Shakespeare no longer make any sense because we don't pronounce the word the same way: "Reason" was pronounced more like "raisin" and many puns, some sexual, are based upon this. Similarly, "ace" was pronounced more like "ass.") Shakespeare coined many new words that have entered the larger vocabulary. You can learn a lot about how the language shifted from the time of Chaucer by studying Shakespeare.

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If you're under the impression that the words of Shakespeare represent the English as it was spoken every day, then, except where Shakespeare deliberatly writes colloquialisms, you're very much mistaken. In the same way that actors speak differently onstage than in person, theatre language represents a dialect all its own.

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Shakespeare is elevated language, yes, but it is also commonplace. Especially the comedies. The jokes fly fast and furious. The humor is lost if you have to think about it. There's a reason Shakespeare wrote in iambs: English tends to be naturally spoken in iambs.Two years ago, I was in an outdoor production of Taming of the Shrew at Coronado. There's a Naval base on Coronado and the Tomcats were flying over a few times, making it impossible to hear. So during Petrucchio's wedding scene when they have all gone inside and I, Lucentio, am left with Tranio to plot, I made a quick remark:I swear to you the buzzards in this city are the noisiest I've ever heard.I hadn't planned on it, but I had just popped out two lines of perfect iambic pentameter.[The audience loved my remark...the actor playing Tranio picked it up and responded, "Then I shall speak quickly before they pass again."]

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Besides, part of speech in English is often determined via inflection, too. "House" pronounced with /s/ is a noun. "House" pronounced with a /z/ is a verb.

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That's a legacy use, not a new form. So what?

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It goes to the point that part of speech is sometimes determined by inflection in English. It was in response to your direct statement: Thus, I responded by pointing out an example of part of speech being determined inflectionally, not positionally.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Oh? You fear for the objectivity of our observers? As thought I've colluded with them behind the scenes? My, how your list of my imagined flaws grows...I can assure you that there is nobody here whom I have ever met. I can only assume the same is true for you. Who else could objectively identify qualities about us besides those with no personal interest in our reciprocal opinions of them? Having traveled to France with speakers of Spanish, and after seeing how they almost immediately gain more comprehension of the language than I've absorbed in a year's study of the language, I'd say that's exactly right. That's quite a courteous compliment. I'm genuinely touched. (Seriously, I am.) A cat that can tell the difference between even and odd? Maybe that's not weird where you're from, but it sure is where I am. Remember, I didn't say "I can't believe it, so it must not be true." What I said was "I can't believe that without some independant evidence." You claimed that was an argument from incredulity, and that it was insulting you to ask for confirmation.But even if you had said something as prosaic as "the sky is usually blue" I could have asked for evidence. If that insults you, I suggest you abandon this forum at once. You'll find requests for evidence in every thread. It was only a matter of time before somebody asked you for some. Oh, come on. That's outrageous. It was your statement, it's your burden of proof. How could I have come to see your cat? You haven't even told me where you live? I can't afford the plane ticket. You may say that's not your fault, but you present statements and claim you can support them, you have to present the data. Simply saying "come see" isn't good enough.In short that's just a game you play to make it look like you've shown the data, when you really haven't. What, that's my fault? That I won't accept your anecdote without a little more work from you? This is just ludicrous.If you can't provide evidence for your anecdotes, don't bring them up. And if you can't bring the cat to me - or independant confirmation of its abilities, such as a documented paper in a peer-reveiwed journal - then you haven't provided evidence. As you once asked me, if you don't like what I have to say about your words, why don't you change them? All the mathematicians and computer scientists I know have BA degrees. What I'm hung up on is the fact that when I ask you where the underlying five-ness is, you point to a usage of the symbol "five". I just don't see what that has to do with anything. Weak, dude. Firstly, sarcasm is not an ad hominem attack, it's a form of emphasis, like swearing. Secondly in each case I was responding to a tone of arrogance or anti-science in the previous post. If you're argument is, you're going to run to mommy because I hit you back, that's as ludicrous now as it was when my sister did it when she was 8.Or is it your argument that Benn and Jet are such splendid examples of well-tempered writing that they deserve to be treated with kid gloves? I generally decend to the same level that my opponent presents themselves. If you find me responding to your posts with wordgames and snippy comments, it's probably because of something you did first. What, when I bring up relativity, I'm supposed to defend Einstein? When I bring up evolution, I'm supposed to defend Darwin? Given that the validity of a proposition has nothing to do with how great a guy thought of it, or how many people agree, why would Chomsky himself have anything to do with his theory? Sure, I said that. After you brought up Chomsky. You made it an argument from authority; I merely joined you at that level. Sure it is. It's parallel structure. Just like you could say "Bill, you bring the hamburgers, Jill, you bring the buns, and Ed, our hotdogs." Ah, but he was writing poetry, not transcribing spoken English. So his literature is not indicative of a change in spoken grammar between then and now. Not to say that it didn't happen, but Shakespeare isn't evidence of it. Actually, you're wrong about that. The part of speech of any homonym of "house" is still determined positionally. Consider its written use, where you can't hear the pronunciation. It's still the position of the word that determines the part of speech, and the pronunciation simply follows suit.If the part of speech of "house" is determined inflectionally, why aren't these two statements ambiguous:

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I will house you.

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You are in my house.

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If you're reading it, and can't hear the inflection, how can it determine the part of speech?

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When did we agree they were objective?

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Oh? You fear for the objectivity of our observers?

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It isn't a question of fear. It's a question of trust.

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As thought I've colluded with them behind the scenes? My, how your list of my imagined flaws grows...

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You have an awfully high opinion of your importance in my life. I don't think you're having some sort of secret meeting. I certainly didn't imply such.

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I can assure you that there is nobody here whom I have ever met. I can only assume the same is true for you. Who else could objectively identify qualities about us besides those with no personal interest in our reciprocal opinions of them?

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"No personal interest"? When was it determined that the other people on this forum have "no personal interest"?

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You mean a person who speaks French can be understood by a person who speaks Spanish?

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Having traveled to France with speakers of Spanish, and after seeing how they almost immediately gain more comprehension of the language than I've absorbed in a year's study of the language, I'd say that's exactly right.

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Logical error. Just because Romance langauges share common structure such as spelling and tense, understandable given their origins, does not mean that they are the same language. My training in Spanish made French much easier for me, but it was not just a question of vocabulary, spelling, and accent. I can barely make sense of Portuguese. And given my smattering of German combined with my English, I amazed myself at my ability to pick through Dutch, but I'd be a fool to say I understood it. At best, I could pick my way through other people making well-formed, simple statements. I am unable to actually generate even the most basic sentence in Dutch.

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Given our past discussions over language, I had come away with the impression that you had some knowledge of the subject.

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That's quite a courteous compliment. I'm genuinely touched. (Seriously, I am.)

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Your welcome.

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It wasn't incredulous. You claimed it was, but that's just part of the game.

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A cat that can tell the difference between even and odd? Maybe that's not weird where you're from, but it sure is where I am. Remember, I didn't say "I can't believe it, so it must not be true." What I said was "I can't believe that without some independant evidence." You claimed that was an argument from incredulity, and that it was insulting you to ask for confirmation.

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Not at all. It isn't insulting to ask for evidence. It was insulting that you insinuated that my examples were "all too convenient" as if I had an ulterior motive for bringing them up. The insult wasn't what you said, it was how you said it. The way you responded seemed to indicate that you were not looking for confirmation because you wanted to verify anybody's position but rather that you suspected I was just making it up to keep from losing an argument.

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But even if you had said something as prosaic as "the sky is usually blue" I could have asked for evidence. If that insults you, I suggest you abandon this forum at once. You'll find requests for evidence in every thread. It was only a matter of time before somebody asked you for some.

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(*chuckle*)You really don't remember what you said, do you?

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I offered to show you direct evidence. You balked. Just come on down. I'll show you the cat. You can come meet the owners. They'll tell you, themselves. Of course, if you come with this attitude that you seem to be presenting, they may decide to refuse, but we might be able to come to a compromise.

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Oh, come on. That's outrageous.

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Why? How else am I going to show you what this cat can do?

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It was your statement, it's your burden of proof.

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And I have met it. It is up to you to look at the evidence. If I'm going to prove that the moon has mountains, then that requires that I come up with some way of examining the moon, perhaps by creating a telescope that is of sufficient power that it can resolve features of the moon. That I can do.What I can't make you do is look through the telescope. Your refusal to look through the telescope is not my problem.Suppose we were talking about the time dilation of moving objects in a gravitic field. How on earth do I demonstrate it? Yeah, all that mathematical crap is interesting, but that's paper. We need to find an actual example. Well, to do that we need to come up with extremely sensitive timing instruments and a method to put one in a gravitic field of a certain strength and another in a gravitic field of a sufficiently different strength and then move it at a sufficiently advanced velocity.I don't know about you, but I don't have access to atomic clocks or supersonic jets. How is that my fault, though? They do exist. It is not my job to run the experiment for you.

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How could I have come to see your cat? You haven't even told me where you live?

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By asking me. We can make the arrangements. My profile includes my email address, so you could easily have written to me.

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I can't afford the plane ticket.

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And this is my problem how? If we're going to test the atmospheric pressure at the top of Mt. Everest, somebody has to go up there. If I can and you can't, how is that my fault?

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You may say that's not your fault, but you present statements and claim you can support them, you have to present the data. Simply saying "come see" isn't good enough.

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Yes, it is. If you refuse to come see, that is not my problem.By your logic, it was Galileo's fault that the inquisitors refused to look through his telescope to see that the moon had mountains.

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In short that's just a game you play to make it look like you've shown the data, when you really haven't.

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Now think about this, crash: I told you that it was not my cat, and yet you responded by saying that I should somehow send the cat to you. And now, because it is not my cat to send, you hold it against me as if somehow I am refusing to provide you evidence.

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What, that's my fault? That I won't accept your anecdote without a little more work from you? This is just ludicrous.

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Yes, it is ludicrous that you continue to think that I should send you something that isn't mine to send.I have done all the requisite work. It is up to you to do your work and get to where the evidence lies.Suppose we were talking about something that required the use of a linear accelerator. Do you think I could just pack up the one at Stanford and ship it off to you? Or is the more reasonable for the two of us to go to Stanford?

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If you can't provide evidence for your anecdotes, don't bring them up.

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Ah, but I can provide evidence. Come and see. If you are unwilling or unable to come and see, that is not my problem. I can give you the telescope, but I cannot make you look through it.

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And if you can't bring the cat to me - or independant confirmation of its abilities, such as a documented paper in a peer-reveiwed journal - then you haven't provided evidence.

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Right...a peer-reviewed article on a single animal.However, I did provide you with evidence you could easily acquire on your own. Or do you not remember my posting of the Nature program on animal intelligence. Of course, that would require you to do some work to track it down, so I guess I'm being naive if I think you'd do anything to see it.

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Now you've suddenly shifted to something like, "Well, if you claim you're not ignorant, that must mean you're saying you're not ignorant about anything."

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As you once asked me, if you don't like what I have to say about your words, why don't you change them?

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Because those weren't my words. When I say X and you equivocate what X means, then you have changed my words. If I am going to change them, it is only to change them back to what they originally were.Do you really think I am that stupid?

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That's why you get a BS in Math, not a BA.

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All the mathematicians and computer scientists I know have BA degrees.

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All the ones I know are science, not arts.

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You seem to be hung up that I cannot write about the number five without actually using the word "five."

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What I'm hung up on is the fact that when I ask you where the underlying five-ness is, you point to a usage of the symbol "five".

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How is pointing to the fingers on your hand a "usage of the symbol 'five'"?Once again, I haven't managed to perfect that telepathy thing yet, so I have to communicate to you in language. We seem to have agreed that English is the language to use, therefore the word I use to describe the object is going to be "five." But you see the symbol and never get beyond it. You seem to think that I'm talking about the symbol because I use the symbol to refer to the object, never getting past the symbol to comprehend the object the symbol refers to.You're absolutely right, crash: I cannot talk about five without using the word "five." But then again, I can't talk about apples without using the word "apple." While you seem to be able to understand that the symbol "apple" is not what I'm talking about when I talk about apples, there appears to be a mental block in doing the same thing for five.You need to forget the symbology. It is merely a convenience for communication. Just as an apple has nothing to do with the fact that we use the symbol "apple" to refer to one in English, five has nothing to do with the fact that we use the symbol "five" to refer to it in English.I just don't see what that has to do with anything.Or do you not notice your ad hominem comments to the various creationists?Weak, dude. Firstly, sarcasm is not an ad hominem attack, it's a form of emphasis, like swearing. Secondly in each case I was responding to a tone of arrogance or anti-science in the previous post. If you're argument is, you're going to run to mommy because I hit you back, that's as ludicrous now as it was when my sister did it when she was 8.Or is it your argument that Benn and Jet are such splendid examples of well-tempered writing that they deserve to be treated with kid gloves? I generally decend to the same level that my opponent presents themselves. If you find me responding to your posts with wordgames and snippy comments, it's probably because of something you did first.

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You didn't just say that, did you? You bring up "deep grammar" and then expect us to believe you weren't bringing up Chomsky?

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What, when I bring up relativity, I'm supposed to defend Einstein? When I bring up evolution, I'm supposed to defend Darwin?

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Deep grammar is essentially the view of Chomsky (or was). Do you not know of the cult of personality surrounding him?

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Given that the validity of a proposition has nothing to do with how great a guy thought of it, or how many people agree,

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So why did you defend it with:

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why would Chomsky himself have anything to do with his theory?

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Because Chomsky cultivates such an attitude.

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Now where's the Bastard's braves, and Charles his glikes?
"And Charles his glikes"? That's not grammatically correct in modern English.

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Sure it is.

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No, it isn't. The use of "Charles" precludes the use of "his."

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It's parallel structure.

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But it isn't parallel. It was "Bastard's" with a possessive, so a parallel structure would be "Charles'." Instead, Shakespeare doesn't use parallel structure but instead uses a grammatical construction that is no longer correct in modern English.

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Just like you could say "Bill, you bring the hamburgers, Jill, you bring the buns, and Ed, our hotdogs."

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But that isn't anything like the quoted line. Notice the use of the comma to indicate that "Ed" was a statement of address. In the line from 1 Henry 6, Talbot is not addressing Charles but is talking about Charles to Burgundy. "Charles" is the possessor of the glikes. In modern English, that requires the use of the apostrophe.

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What does Shakespeare have to do with it? He was writing right when the language was shifting from Middle to Modern.

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Ah, but he was writing poetry, not transcribing spoken English.

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So? He was writing in blank verse in a time where the language was much more flexible about such things. In modern useage, it is stilted and awkward. If you look at prose of the time, you find similar constructions.

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So his literature is not indicative of a change in spoken grammar between then and now. Not to say that it didn't happen, but Shakespeare isn't evidence of it.

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Actually, it is. The reason he could get away with it is because the common use of the language followed it. In modern times, it takes about 15 minutes (it's been timed) for an audience to warm up to Shakesperean speech. Your opening had better be amazing because the audience simply isn't going to understand a word of what you're saying until Scene 2.

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If you're reading it, and can't hear the inflection, how can it determine the part of speech?

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I concede the point. It was a poor example.I notice, however, that you haven't responded to my example of the pronouns.

I rearranged it (could have done a little more precise job), to get 16. The third one is my modification:Moose

Why else besides a relatively random sampling of people would lack a personal interest in this matter?You seem to object to the idea that the people here are fit to judge which of us is the more "honest" debater. I can't image what other group of people you think would be more qualified. I'm sorry, where did I say they were the same language? You've made the fallacy of false alternatives - to you, if they're not "completely separate languages", they're the same language. My suspicions as to your motives are hardly relevant. No matter what I may suspect about you the onus on you to provide data is still the same. You'll notice that I never said you were making it up. Only that you might be. A statement that, in either case, would have been immediately refuted by evidence.But for some reason, you decided to act duplicitously, which had the opposite effect. Shoot some video and post it on the internet? Get a reporter to write a story and show me it's appearance in the paper? Publish a peer-reviewed article called "The Singular Case of the Parity-detecting Cat"?Our world is full of possibilities. We're communicating over a system that allows the exchange of data over considerable distance. There's got to be something you can think of. It's not refusal. It's inability. If you put the telescope where I can't get at it, it's not my fault if I can't look through it. The scientific publishing process exists so that we don't have to run experiments over and over again for everybody.You seem to think that I need to see the cat with my own eyes. I don't. I just have to have evidence beyond your account. So far you've provided two alternatives: spend a bunch of money I don't have to see the cat, or accept your anecdote as inviolate.I don't accept either of those. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for evidence I have access to. Why not just ask people who has been there?You're acting like nobody has seen this cat before. If it exists, somebody must have. The owners, perhaps? I just need more than your word, since at this point you're hardly a disinterested party. The inquisitors were at the telescope, which you seem to have ignored. I am hardly standing next to your cat. As it turns out, I can't get to your cat. How is that my fault? I guess you're happy to present unobtainable evidence and act like you've supported your position. Fine, play your little playground game. Gosh, it's not my fault if you can't interest a journal in your article. Your shortcomings as a science author have nothing to do with the topic. Anyway it's no less reasonable than expecting somebody to fly out to an internet stranger's friend's house to substantiate rumors about a cat. Well, now we know that mathematics programs are not universally science or art programs. yes, I'm quite aware of it. It was my hope to avoid it (since it's irrelevant to the topic) by not bringing up Chomsky. But you dragged him into it. You haven't answered my question. Why did you respond to a position by questioning its acceptance among authorities if not to argue from authority? And then once you had, why did you question my use of an argument from authority?Like I said, I decend to your level. Well, the more I think about it, the more I agree with you - that's not a modern usage.But given that Shakespeare was writing poetry, not transcribing use, what makes you think that usage was correct at the time? How do you know this? I'd need to see some records about spoken use contemporary to Shakespeare. As examples of a shift in word choice, I didn't find them relevant to our conversation.Look, we're terminally off-topic, and it's pretty obvious that this is going to be more game-playing on both sides until one of us comes up with a new idea about the independant physical reality of language.You can have the last word, if you like, but I'm done.

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No, NO, NO! I am not saying that at all. I am saying the exact opposite of that.

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Yeah, you are. Read your own arguments.

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Mental changes cannot affect physical reality precisely because they are mental.

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Thanks, Rh, for pointing out an issue not in question.

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But number is a physical reality. That's why your mentation cannot affect it.

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Wrong. It doesn't follow. Actually, I can do anything I damn well please with number. It is only when trying to make number/mathematics match up with an physical world that there are limitations. That is the point. There is the physical, and there is our analysis of it. You are taking the analysis for a real live physical thing. It just ain't so.

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No matter how hard you think about it, you cannot change the number of fingers on your hand. Why? Because number is a physical property and you're trying to change it with a mental process.

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No. Wrong answer. I can't change the number of fingers on my hand because I don't have psychic powers. Rhhain's numbers-are-real argument: Humans don't have psychic powers, therefore number are real things. What you ask isn't that I change the 'number' of fingers, but that I grow a new finger or magically make one appear. It has nothing to do with number. It has nothing to do with 'five' magically inhering in my fingers. It has to do with mass/energy equivalencies, atomic structure, chemical bonds, etc. Mathematics is a mental construct layed over those processes. We can change math. That such change doesn't change the physical system it overlays irrelevant.Let's parse this argument you've been making.1) If a thing(s)-- in this case, number-- exists in reality, then one cannot change it by thinking really really hard.
2) One cannot change the number of objects by thinking really really hard.
3) Therefore, number is real.I looked in my handy Symbolic Logic by Irving Copi and, surprise surprise, this ain't a valid formula. It is a fallacy called affirming the consequent. So drop it.Now, I know what you are thinking, "That isn't the right formulation." Okey dokey. Let's flip it.1) If one cannot change it by thinking really really hard, then a thing(s)-- in this case, number-- exists in reality.
2) One cannot change the number of objects by thinking really really hard.
3) Therefore, number is real.hmmm.... looks better that way, at least it isn't fallacious, but lets look deeper.That a real thing cannot be changed simply by changing one's mind seems to be reasonable claim. However, the valid formulation of that claim is that of the first argument presented above, and that argument suffers from a logical flaw. There is no way to derive the second formulation from the first and I can't see it standing on its own. That something does not change when we try to think it into changing is just not sufficient reason to call it real.So what is your argument again?

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But we can't change the number of fingers on your hand just by thinking about it. Thus, the number is a physical property, not a mental one.

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Nope. Can't use that one. See above.

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No, NO, NO! I am saying the exact opposite. Changing the mental construct...calling it "six" instead of "five"...doesn't actually change the number of fingers you have on your hand. You can think and think and think some more, but you'll still only have five fingers on your hand.

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YES, YES, YES!!! You are saying exactly what I propose. Read it again. What I wrote is nearly identical to your 'refutation.'Rh: Changing the mental construct...calling it "six" instead of "five"...
John: ... changing the mental construct of number...Rh: ...doesn't actually change the number of fingers you have on your hand.
John: ... MUST change the physical OR...Rh: You can think and think and think some more, but you'll still only have five fingers on your hand.
John: ... number is not a mental construct.The only real difference is how you phrased the conclusion. It is the same damned argument. Did you confuse yourself?

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This is what I meant when I said you are confusing the map for the terrain.

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Sorry, bud, you've got that backwards. Math is the map. It is not I who continually claims it to be somehow a real thing. You walk into a room and step off twenty paces from the door to the far wall-- ie. you draw a map with numbers. You overlay the reality with math. 'Twenty paces' does not reside in the room. You impose it. It is shorthand.

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I know. That's why I'm arguing with you. You're making no sense.

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childish...

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Thank you. You just made my point.

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Are you serious? You are now making the claim that the longitude/latitude coordinate system we use to navigate is a REAL THING?!!!????? WE MADE THAT UP!!! You can't be serious.Let's back up. You state...

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The metric is, yes. And the orientation is arbitrary, though understandable. The physical location, however, and the relationship between that location and others is a physical property.

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You agree that the metric is a mental construct. You state that the orientation is arbitrary. So far two elements are human inventions. Now for the last sentence. Yes, the relationships are physical properties, but the relationships aren't math. The relationships could sit forever and math would not jump out of them. Math is how WE DESCRIBE those relationships. It is not the relationships themselves.

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Thank you. You just made my point.

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So, you official position is that the logitude/latitude coordinate system is a real thing? It inhers in the planet? Come on? How about the Mayan calenders? Do those inher too? Swatch time? Time zones? The patterns of the Constellations-- surely those too are real? They are patterns after all.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

John, your entire argument rests upon a mistake. Let me try this again. You write:

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1) If a thing(s)-- in this case, number-- exists in reality, then one cannot change it by thinking really really hard.

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No. This is incorrect and not my argument. You have it backwards.While this statement is true, I am arguing the reverse: If you cannot change it by thinking really, really hard, then it is not a mental construct.Thus, since we find that number cannot be change by thinking really, really hard, we therefore conclude that number is not a mental construct.This thread has wandered so far for so long, since you seem to be incapable of comprehending my argument, I suggest we do what I proffered a long time ago:Let it drop.You're not going to change my mind. I'm not going to change yours. It is clear we are talking past one another.Let it drop.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Same problem, minnemooseus. The leprechauns are not the same size.There's another common example of this. The scenario is of a rug with a burn in it. A hole is cut to remove the burn, but how to repair it? By cutting the rest of the rug in a certain way and re-arranging, you supposedly remove the hole.Let's do this backwards, though, starting with a square and then cutting and re-arranging to make a hole:From the upper-right corner, cut a diagonal that intersects the left edge 7 up from the bottom. Thus, you have a triangular piece 12 across and 5 high.Next, measure 5 over from the bottom of the remaining trapezoid and cut straight up to the top diagonal.Next, measure 2 up from the bottom of the remaining trapezoid and cut straight across.Next, measure 2 over from the bottom of the remaining rectangle and cut up 1, over 3, and up 1, creating two L-shaped pieces.If you then switch the two trapezoid pieces, you'll find that you need to separate the two L-shaped pieces 1 unit in order to get a quadrilateral perimeter.And yet, it's still 12-by-12.Or is it? If you make another 12-by-12 square without a hole and place it over the one that has a hole, you'll find that you didn't create an actual square. It is taller than the square by 1/12. No wonder there's a hole in the resultant rug...the missing area has been transferred to the edge of the object.You can create an extremely simple version of this by taking a piece of paper and drawing a series of equally-spaced lines on it such that if you draw a diagonal, it just touches the tip of the closest line but crosses in the middle of all the others. If you then cut the paper diagonally and slide the pieces along the diagonal toward each other, you'll be able to decrease the number of lines. But, each line is now longer than it was before by 1/nth (where n is the number of lines). Similarly, if you slide them apart, you'll increase the number of lines, but each line is now shorter than it was before.As Martin Gardner pointed out, you can do this with money: If you cut 9 bills into 18 parts, you can re-arrange them to make 10 bills...but you can tell because the serial numbers will not line up (they're specifically designed to foil this scheme.) It seems that British notes, however, weren't quite done correctly and in 1968, a man was convicted of doing this on the 5-pound note.(from aha! Gotcha by Martin Gardner, "Randi's Remarkable Rugs" and "The Vanishing Leprechaun" (which, by the way, includes that puzzle which is copyrighted 1968 by W. A. Elliott Co., Toronto, Canada.)So we're left with my original assessment:You can't change the number simply by thinking about it. You have to physically do something. Yeah, you can make the 14 leprechauns turn into 15, but only by physically cutting them up and re-arranging them.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Hello. I'm a little confused about this site but I have synthenasia and am trying to find out more about it and when I did a search this site came up as it was mentioned in this forum. I just wondered if the person who talked about it knows any websites, books, or anything that could tell me a little bit more!!

Hey colourgirl.May I start off by saying I envy you since I imagine(wrongly?)that the world must seem amazing to you.If you are having trouble locating websites it is because of your spelling.I know this since I did a web search and I misspelled it and ended up with little if anything.The correct spelling is synesthesia.When I put that in my search engine ( Yahoo Search - Web Search ) I hit the jackpot.Let me know how it well it helped and keep in contact because I am really interested in this subject and would delight in hearing about how you percieve things.

Thankyou!! I wondered why nothing was happening. Very appreciative.