Peanut Gallery

The original bluegenes text from Message 167: I have a cat who is staring at an empty corner of the room and thinks he sees something. He pounces on it and nothing is there. A few moments later he hallucinates the thing again and pounces only to have it vanish into nothingness in his paws again. Moments later it happens again.Here is a supernatural thing that is NOT a figment of human imagination, but instead is a figment of feline imagination. It is supernatural because the thing vanishes magically, seemingly at will, to escape the paws.So strike the word "human".Even replacing it with "cerebral" may also get a trivial oopsie. An entity that can hallucinate?No - better just to strike the modifier.Now we have - which still has all the same problems we have seen before.Now restate it as This might flip the onus back to where it belongs. Then again it might not.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

bluegenes answers: Excellent! Solid evidence - for me. I know for certain this entity is made up. Yes. Now go back to confront RAZD with this. The only caveat, is that you & I could be in cahoots and I could be lying saying it's evidence for me.Your other question about your avatar is noted. Did you see my correction to how it should be rabbit DNA? And also the incident of feline imagination? p.s. - when does this lovely creature show up again? I can't wait any longer! Now don't tell me you sent her to Oni!

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

It could happen any day!

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

bluegenes says: First off, I'm not on my brother's side on this. I'm on your side. I'm just trying to make your point stronger.Secondly, I do think the rabbit DNA conjecture is a much stronger analogy. It does a better job of throwing light on the issue, IMO.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

I am flabbergasted that you still think I am talking about the IPU.I'm talking about made-up-ness. Forensic evidence that the entity was made up. This is existent tangible evidence in the form of fingerprints, film, tape recordings and even confessions by the perpetrators. The IPU was made up. Well, let's see the evidence. I'm not talking about einsteinian gedanken thought experiment arguments from the soft comforts of an armchair, I'm talking about actually getting out and doing the leg work.What is scientific evidence that something is made up? You seem to be dancing around to it via philosophical logic arguments. That is not where I want to go, although that would come up later in this particular Great Debate - if they ever get out of the starting box.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Straggler says: Tell me, Straggler - what positive evidence do you have that the IPU was made up? Is the result of Wikipedia good enough?Maybe you could break your evidence up into subjective, hearsay and objective, focusing on the 3rd category.We often allow, in this discussion board, links to reputable sources as cites of good positive objective evidence and that the screen images and words are not being fabricated in front of us in order to perpetuate some kind of falsehood.This is not "there is no evidence of an IPU, therefore it must be made up", which would be a negatively evidenced tentative conclusion. Lack of IPU evidence cannot be used here. I would want to see evidence of the making up of the IPU.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Straggler writes: Absolutely not! LULZI'm on your side...all I want is things like photographic, video, testimonial stuff FROM THE GUYS THAT MADE IT UP, damn it.I know about all the other things you talk of - THEY ARE IRRELEVANT here. I'm talking about "made-up" evidence, not the abundancy of human imagination. I want forensic evidence. I want the guy who made it up to present testimony & film & other hard "fingerprint" evidence that the IPU was made up. I'm certain it exists, like I am certain evidence of atoms exists........ NONE. I am not arguing that at all. I am not arguing with you. And furthermore, I wont ask you to do Bluegenes homework for him instead of me doing it either.It's like you & I are riding in a motorcar and I ask you how this motorcar works - I know - and I know that you know, but I just want to hear you say it.The evidence that the IPU was made up, not the evidence that shows that the position that it was not made up is ridiculous. It's a much smaller scale of a question. Yet this is the question that RAZD asked of Bluegenes. And then the whole thing went off into the falsifiability of his theory - which is indeed a question of importance, but it is not the first question.Problem is, suppose Bluegenes does cite the mundane forensics asked for in the case of the IPU and then gets "OK, now do the Spaghetti Monster?" and then "do The Greek Gods" * and then the whole Judeo-Christian mythology* and so on. And, like an Ace of Spades buried in a deck of 2 million red suit cards, not having found it in 200,000 draws does not mean it doesnt exist in the deck. So with some 2 million different things offered up as possibly supernatural, finding out that the first 200,000 are made up doesnt mean that there might be one down in the deck somewhere than wasnt made up. At best we can only say it isnt likely, based on what we've seen so far. We might even be able to characterize the odds using MTBF statistics and the like. Like the odds on a dropped apple falling to earth from it's tree are overwhelmingly likely, they are not 100.000000000000000000000% certain.Now, dont get me wrong - using the descriptive words of the Dawkins scale, I would argue that I am not going to make the way I behave and move through this universe assume that the apple wont fall or that the IPU or the Greek Gods or any of those sorts of things exist. And I know you wont either.* of course, the forensic evidence for these is easily 5 orders of magnitude harder to obtain!

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Straggler, still confused about what I was looking for, asks: Not worded the way I want. Perhaps I might restate your question thus: It is not relevant to my evidence demand that the entity is immaterial or material or that it was designed to be unfalsifiable or that it does or does not exist. That is for another day.Straggler continues: Irrelevant to this issue. That statement requires an additional argument to come into play that uses logic and probability.You would use that argument to strike down a scientific board authorizing detectives and forensic laboratories to find the perpetrator and method of hoaxing us on the grounds that it is a waste of the science board's money. And, while that is something I would tend to agree with, that is not what is asked.I would want to see things like: For example, we have the individual (Bobby Henderson) who came up with the Flying Spaghetti Monster and how he did it. We could sit in an armchair and observe that it is not logically likely at all, but - hey - we have the guy that did it saying that he did it. And his story checks out. He didn't come off the street falsely claiming to have made up the FSM.The origin of the IPU is a little bit murkier. But not very different, I would guess. Again - I don't want to do bluegenes' homework for him.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Staggler writes: Oh, DON'T BE SILLY! I am doing nothing of the kind. I am saying only that bluegenes was asked to first find the equivalent of a Bobby Henderson for the IPU.Let's look at the RAZD question from the OP Message 1: bluegenes is asked to "demonstrate how you can determine that they are made up".He said it should be easy. Actually, in my opinion, RAZD was rather mistaken. Or, much more likely, being extremely devious. In my cursory examination of the internet literature on the subject, the origin of the IPU story is a bit murkier than "easy". It is not like the Flying Spaghetti Monster, where we have the evidence plain & simple in Bobby Henderson. I can, at best, only put a time bracket around it, perhaps. Error bars centered just before around July 1990 somewhere....?He quotes directly from bluegenes: bluegenes, in Message 167 further claims: He was not asked to first provide evidence the IPU does not exist. He was asked to first provide evidence that it was "made up".Do you understand the difference?In Message 408 I said: In my opinion, you have only abundantly addressed the second issue. And very well.How about this analogy: a room full of supposed Van Gogh paintings.In the gallery there are many Van Gogh paintings, but over here is a painting of the Lunar Module landing on the moon in 1969 claimed to be painted by Vincent Van Gogh.You are arguing that there is no way Van Gogh did that painting because he lived and died way before the event occurred.I am saying that RAZD wants the equivalent of bluegenes to do something like a Carbon-14 date and all manner of other chemical analyses on the paint used, the canvas backing, and the framing and whatever else, like calling all our attention to a guy standing there with a wet paint brush of exactly the same composition - admitting that he faked it in the Van Gogh style (our equivalent of a Bobby Henderson here), to prove it came from a time post moon landing. Hey, maybe the paint is still wet! Wait - that's even better. The paint is still wet.Why go into a long tirade about the extreme unlikelyhood of Van Gogh having any clairvoyant abilities when you can just say "Hey - the paint is still wet!"

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

In message Message 1 bluegenes starts the whole shebang with: Should have been: I don't have the "plenty of evidence", other than what are essentially only STORIES. But this isn't my ax to grind.Edited by xongsmith, : slow connections deleted a long massive reply

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Straggler still dont be gittin' it: All you have argued is the from the point that "the IPU doesn't exist."It isn't what is being asked! My problem is getting it through your thick head that this isn't about the "does not exist" component. It's about the "is made up" component.Look at my Van Vogh analogy.You have been thoroughly thrashing & pounding the ground over & over that the IPU doesn't exist, like you would be arguing that there was no way Van Gogh could have painted a picture of the Lunar Landing. You trot out the equivalent of iron-clad documentation of the date of Van Gogh's death and the date of the Lunar Landing.But you could simply get up and go over to the painting and touch it and find that the paint is still wet, so it's a fake.Who started the idea of the IPU?

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Straggler, from message Message 366: I grasped it the first time. You are approaching the problem from the other end of the spectrum. This is all true, Straggler. I have no disagreement with it.
But there is another way:# The Bobby Henderson of the IPU comes forward and says he made it all up.# He further stipulates where we can find all the forensic evidence we need to verify that he made it up.# His story is checked out and everything is exactly according to his description.# Hence it is made up.# Whilst said entity might actually exist this is nothing more than the philosophical possibility that by some miraculous co-incidence a certain mundane human hoax has duplicated some entirely imperceptible truth by pure chance. Yes?I get to "made up" in step 4. It took you 6. We are coming from the opposite ends of the spectrum into the same interior conclusion.Here is the crux of the issue:

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Hi Modulous! I am not arguing the merits of the question RAZD asked - only explaining what it was he asked of bluegenes. Whether is has any useful value to the Great Debate they are in is a completely different subject. I am just trying to make a ruling and not criticize or support the tactics of one of the debaters.I am also NOT claiming the RAZD was asking bluegenes to specifically find the person who started the IPU, but only bringing that up as example of the sorts of things that fall under the question he asked. A wet paint equivalent would another example of these sorts of things.Note: I am not assuming the person who started the idea made it up - in my example that person claims to have made it up. He admits it. He tells us how he did it and where to find evidence that he did. Furthermore, when we scientifically investigate whether or not that person is telling the truth, we find that he has told the truth to all extent & purposes.On an off-topic aside to this issue, I might want to get into one of Straggler's Step-By-Step paths:# If the IPU was made up, then it was made up by some intelligent lifeform, using imagination. (Possibly flawed by random computer-generated IPU-ish things out of some program running by itself. Although the author of the program could be said to be the intelligent lifeform. There may be a chance the author never looks at the output and the program posts its output on usenet somewhere and somebody else reads it and starts a discussion in alt.atheism in 1990, so perhaps they should be assigned the guilt?)# If some intelligent lifeform made it up, then all the evidence we have so far would lead us to the inescapable conclusion that a human being made it up.# Therefore there is a human being somewhere that made up the IPU.# Odds are this person is still alive and can come forward."All is forgiven now. Come forward so we can all give you a proper round of applause. And make sure to fly British Airways."

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Modulous writes: I don't think so in this particular instance. Devious, maybe.Continuing: Yes: One may not necessarily need to find individuals/bread crumbs/scientific evidence to demonstrate that a concept is made up - yes, I agree this is true for a lot of these kinds of questions in general - BUT, in this particular instance, RAZD is asking bluegenes to do exactly that in the 1st half of his 1st challenge sentence:from the OP of their Great Debate thread: Note that the sentence has an "is" part and a "not" part.The "not a supernatural being" part may have been adequately addressed by Straggler and others here in the Peanut Gallery and elsewhere in EvC. But the "is unequivocally and absolutely a fictional invention" part has only been indirectly addressed by logical induction/deduction/reduction/seduction/liposuction methods which have avoided what RAZD was asking for - the forensic (and I have only been using that word because my brain cannot think of a better adjective these days) evidence.He is smuggling in his familiar argument "Positive Evidence For" as opposed to "Negative Evidence Against".You seem to be concurring that Straggler's argument of "proving" a negative, where "proving" here means only "close enough for us to proceed as if it was proven, as in certain well-established scientific conclusions", coupled with some iron-clad logic, is enough. I have already seen that, yes, that will be a subsequent issue, but first, let's see the Positive evidence of the kind "this is", as in "Hey - this is wet paint!", compared to Negative evidence of the kind "this isn't", as in "Van Gogh couldn't possibly have been clairvoyant enough to paint the Lunar Landing".Let's be clear - I am only trying to explain what I think my brother was saying/asking. Right now he is very busy with many other things of greater concern (as am I), so it isn't a simple matter of me catching him at a free moment and asking him. Perhaps I can do so soon...but he'll probably just snicker and mutter "maybe..." with a twinkle in his eye.Was it fair to ask that of bluegenes? To deviously smuggle that in under the guise "should be easy"? Yes - it most certainly was, because bluegenes did not precisely state his theory properly - he left that crack open and RAZD jumped all over it.bluegenes stated in Message 167: Note that he uses the word "are" in his statement (the plural form of is).He also then, remarkably, says: RAZD takes the challenge and immediately asks for evidence that the IPU is made up. Now RAZD himself doesn't believe in the IPU, but that isn't the issue. The issue is the Positive evidence that bluegenes claims to have that the IPU IS made up.Parenthetically I might add that bluegenes has yet to address the specific IPU question, instead bringing in all manner of other religious entities and bringing up some mutually exclusive algebraic nature of their multitudinous literal explanations.It is as if bluegenes, when claiming that everything is one of the many flowers we already know about and then asked to produce a rose, instead produces a daffodil, a chrysanthemum, a cornflower, and so on - but no rose. WTF?

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

{side note to Percy - I'm getting a weird Reply "feature", some sort of doubling up of quoted text, actually the part that i highlight plus the entire post, top to bottom...but nevermind, I'll proceed....}Straggler appears to be coming around: EXACTLY. Devious brother of mine. Imagine what might happen when we get to question "Who was the person or committee that made up Jesus Christ?" What evidence do we have that he was made up? (IANO, please be quiet at this time - ). No. that would mean that he has a rap sheet on logic here - he doesn't. Because he is absolutely right in this debate and everyone in EvC was jumping all over him, bringing all the other baggage in, when it was bluegenes who fucked up.And because he's my brother. He may not have the same view on this that I have (I happen to agree with bluegenes conjecture). But I'll be damned if I don't also see the defect in bluegenes "theory". RAZD jumped all over it. Of course I was busy elsewhere, creating other universes at the time, so I didn't notice until the whole shebang bubbled up into everyone's view. Damned if he wasn't like an obsidian knife into the "theory". There is no "theory". bluegenes lied when he said he had "plenty of evidence". Yet the "theory" is one that you & I agree with. See - this isn't about what you & I believe is true - it's all about DEBATE tactics. RAZD was able to see the flaw in the challenge & took him on it & skewered him, rightly so, for stating what he wanted to state so poorly.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d