Peanut Gallery

Panda is CORRECT!: Panda, you are welcome to join in! And Modulous too!The Theme for this game is the Great Debate between bluegenes & RAZD.Perhaps another thread? But how to do that??

---

- xongsmith, 5.7d

Wounded King notes: But, WK, it's okay if you join us in this EvC game (which should move to a new thread, methinks)!

---

- xongsmith, 5.7d

Straggler struggles again: First off, it is not RAZD's job to do bluegenes' homework for him.bluegenes, in a nutshell, is essentially claiming You cannot begin with the result "It doesn't exist", therefore it is made up, because then you have the silly sentence: It doesn't exist, therefore it was made up, so therefore it doesn't exist.That is why RAZD's 1st job for bluegenes, "Show us the evidence that the IPU was made up.", cannot begin with steps showing the IPU doesn't exist first.You talking about what you think RAZD believes about these sorts of things is off-topic at the moment. It is bluegenes who has to do the homework.

---

- xongsmith, 5.7d

hi again Staggler. The problem is not how you or I state the "theory". It's how bluegenes stated it. He screwed up on a technicality in his english transcription of what we all think he really meant to say. We know what he wanted to say. We agree with it. On the whole we don't think he's wrong. But he screwed up. This has nothing to do with it. It could be Sasquatch. It could be the Coelacanth. It could be Champy, the Lochness-like entity in Lake Champlaine bordering New York and Vermont, created to attract tourists. It could be anything. The problem is not in an individual subject of the "theory", it's in the way bluegenes stated his theory "with plenty of evidence".The Straggler Steps: You an I wouldn't need any more. But this is not what is at stake. The particular characteristics of the supernatural entity in question are not on the table to be discussed. Rather, it is the human trail of evidence that it was made up. Think of it in algebraic terms, we don't care what X is, but we know how it got in the box of things that human imagination made up. It was made up. So it goes into the box. How do we know it was made up? Well, the Bobby Henderson(s) of this particular X put it there. It is the putting, not the X, that bluegenes claimed is the case for ALL supernatural things, regardless of what they individually are.RAZD jumped on that and demanded to see the "putting" for the instance of what everybody here (and I mean everybody) has already accepted as a complete figment of human imagination. First off, and let's be clear as we can, this is NOT how I see what bluegenes said. This is instead what he WANTED to say. You are jumping immediately to the 2nd conclusion as he stated it. RAZD is holding up a STOP sign at the first conclusion, namely the conclusion that all supernatural things we have heard about are things that are made up out of the human imagination.The crux of ALL this peanut gallery posting is not what you or I believe, or what RAZD or bluegenes believe. It's all about HOW bluegenes stated his "theory". I use quotes, because in order to be scientifically approved theory, it has to be peer reviewed in scientific literature.bluegenes has yet to provide links to peer-reviewed support in an established scientific journal, no?You keep on coming at me with stuff that is water under the bridge. We are not allowed to use calculus to find the minimum center of gravity of a beer can as we drink it down. We are not allowed to sit in some parlor, in comfy chairs, smoking post-dinner rare Cuban cigars and do gedanken experiments of thought, as lovely as it would be - in this case - because of the way bluegenes stated his theory.

---

- xongsmith, 5.7d

Modulous asks: Sorry. From the OP, RAZD quotes bluegenes challenge of Message 167: ...where I have highlighted the specific text. Okay, I changed the word "beings" into "things", a minor detail. And "all we have heard about" is to be understood to be the same as "only known". But the point remains. It is the act of putting X into the box of things made up by human imagination, not the X, what is being put into the box, per se, that bluegenes is claiming to have "plenty of evidence" for.(Pardon a distantly reminiscent Churchillian "up with which I shall not put" grammatical vibe.)I'm wondering now if it turns out that this is all another English in the UK versus English in the USA nuance that is creating a misunderstanding of our positions?I see that you, Straggler and bluegenes all come from the UK and RAZD & I are from the States. Hmm. Perhaps it's only a language problem.

---

- xongsmith, 5.7d

Rrhain asks RAZD: Rrhain - you seem to be on the same page. Evidence of fabrication - I like that term.Object evidence, or, as the courtroom might phrase it, the facts of the matter. What are the facts that something is fabricated? Certainly your affadavit is one. And you are correct to ask what other kinds of facts can provide objective evidence. A painting in an exhibit of Van Gogh paintings which still has wet paint could not be painted by by Van Gogh, regardless of what the painting is a painting of - such as the LEM landing on the moon. Forensic evidence is the kind of evidence of fabrication that we need.What is your position in this hunt? Do you have a dog in it? Is bluegenes alright with ignoring the challenge of providing this objective evidence that the IPU was made up?

---

- xongsmith, 5.7d

Modulous says: This is sort of the Ace of Spades in the deck logic. We've drawn countless cards from some huge deck and have never drawn an Ace of Spades, therefore, there is no Ace of Spades event likely enough for me to change the way I behave and I'm behaving as if there were none at all.Actually, in this case, it's more like we've never drawn a card that did not belong in this deck of cards of Naturalistic Explanation. Every card we've drawn has been scientifically verified as a member of this deck of cards. Every card we've seen so far has eventually revealed its Naturalistic Explanation.It might be a fact that every supernatural being investigated in depth by scientifically objective methodology has resulted in the conclusion that the supernatural being is a figment of human imagination. But not every supernatural being appearing in human recorded history has been investigated under the lens of scientific method sufficient enough to be dismissed as human imagination. Frankly, most of them aren't worth the time & effort to do that.bluegenes theorizes that when this is done for every supernatural being we know about, even including new ones as we become aware of them, that all of them will turn out to be products of human (maybe we should modify that to say "intelligent") imagination under the scrutiny of scientific investigation.This is a prediction one easily concludes from the stated theory. Perhaps by "known", bluegenes is implying that the rigors of scientific analysis have been applied already. In that case he has a layout of lots of cards that have been shown to belong to the deck, as in "every card drawn so far has been shown to be part of the deck". So it is partial evidence. In my personal case, which has nothing to do with the issue here, there has already been enough evidence for me to live my life as if I will never encounter a card that does not come from this deck. If I ever do draw such a card, I'll go "Oops!" and fold that into the way I conduct my life.HOWEVER---I take exception to your statement that For me, , together with leads me to no other conclusion. What other conclusion could you make? Actually the first statement is enough, just on its own.Getting back to the original point of grammar, I see that the Debate has moved along from the RAZD's 1st task. And it appears that RAZD is getting mired in other issues. Interestingly, bluegenes introduced an example of rain and clouds. But, to use that example, the analogy of RAZD's 1st Task is to show rain forming in a cloud. It is not to show that rain cannot form elsewhere and falsify the theory.Bluegenes in Message 48: The analogous cloud-RAZD is 1st asking He is not looking for arguments like "there are no other clouds in the area, so it has to come from this cloud" coupled with arguments like "this rain has particularly unique characteristics in it that can only come from inside clouds of this cloud's type". That would be relying on a deck of cards.

Oh, you just don't understand. Yes, you were very precise - about the wrong thing! RAZD was NOT asking anything specific about the IPU itself, like its immaterialness/invisibleness/impossibleness. Just how it was made up. He was not asking about the characteristics of the IPU.Ah, but the Debate has evolved into the other stuff, so we'll never know.Question 1 to bluegenes: No Answer. RAZD 1 bluegenes 0Questions after: Yuckko or cheers. bluegenes maybe now leading 24-9?But RAZD did win the 1st point. The night is young. Winner scores 500 points?I think bluegenes will win on stamina, because RAZD cannot use up the actual energy of life itself on this forum at this moment.

I forgot to deal with the rest of the post. Straggler continues: Of course not. RAZD will undoubtedly go down that course until Percy raises his hands to stop it, if bluegenes should be foolish enough to provide the forensic evidence that the IPU is made up. bluegenes just should have conceded that point. The Great Debate should be a marathon, not a one-off.Imagine having to provide forensic evidence that Jesus was made up. You have clearly misunderstood the level of satirical logic here. This is not something that RAZD is saying he would believe - it's a way of exposing the flaws in the logic. If you will, a Legalized Strawman. That is, a Strawman that is permissible in the context of the statements is is surrounded by. You have in fact missed a lot of those in RAZD's ramblings. A pity.Like your latching on to the Pissing Angels.... If you, for one second, think that RAZD is behaving and conducting his life and his search for his treatments as if any of these things exist, then I have a bridge over Narragansett Bay...Oops - can I make a post-edit to the other reply? Damn - I meant to say the winner is the first person to get to Mornington Crescent!!!!!

---

- xongsmith, 5.7d

Bullocks.Take off that silly hat, man.

---

- xongsmith, 5.7d

Straggler seems to see it: However, bluegenes had a slip of the tongue, as Panda worded it, and left a crack open in that door. RAZD immediately jumped through that crack. The crack was that he stated his theory in a manner that allowed RAZD to demand to produce some of the "plenty of evidence" bluegenes claimed to have that the IPU was made up and therefore did not exist, not evidence that the IPU could not exist and therefore had to be made up. That was the flaw in bluegenes presentation.As for the Easter Bunny stuff - I agree with you that the big green block of formal statements on the logic of deciding where you are on the Dawkins scale regarding the Easter Bunny seems a bit silly. I suspect RAZD inside is really a 6.8 or so on the Bunny, unless he has drastically altered his worldview in the intervening years. For the purpose of this forum, however, he could probably stake out a claim he is more like a 5.999999 so as not to have to produce evidence that the Easter Bunny does not exist.
Yeah - I goofed there. Many beers into the night. Sarcastic? Silly? Over-the-top? Obfuscational?

---

- xongsmith, 5.7d

Modulous writes: Yes to all of that, provisionally. However, what I accept and agree with is not relevant to the point.Modulous continues: Oh you missed it! I'm talking about the molecular build up of the clouds water vapor droplets around some dust mote until it is too heavy to remain in the cloud. That is the crack in the door bluegenes left open.If the IPU is entirely a figment of human imagination, as the theory claims, and if bluegenes has plenty of evidence to support that, then he should be able to provide the specific evidence of the making up of the IPU - the creation of the story on alt.atheist in the usenet archives and so forth.Since that evidence is apparently rapidly fading into oblivion here, the statement he has plenty of evidence is false. He only has the other kind, the kind Straggler has put forth. He had to word the theory in such a way as to not have to produce the making-up forensic evidence for every case, or even only for cases that such evidence should be relatively easy to find, just enough cases to get an induction up and going.He could have admitted, in the 3rd post (after RAZD's OP and the Admin promotion post), "That evidence you seek is unfortunately not available in a rigorous manner, like it is for the FSM. But that does not change the magnitude of the power of the theory." Then things would have proceeded to the next issues. Let RAZD score that point. Afterall, it's not going to get him any closer to Mornington Crescent. I don't think that is the case here (RAZD arguing that science is logically invalid) - but, yes, if it were, that would be special pleading.

---

- xongsmith, 5.7d

Straggler asks: Sorry, I meant the armchair philosophical arguments, hopefully accompanied by a fine cigar or at least a fine pint of something or a fine sherry. Because those kind of arguments are fun. Armchair Philosophical Arguments ==> made upas opposed to Forensic Objectively Gathered Evidence ==> made upConsider this from RAZD, in correspondance with Rrhain in Message 477: Now, doesn't this indicate that RAZD is in fact looking for EXACTLY the same kind of evidence I latched onto from day one (Message 260) in this discussion? Why did I understand what RAZD was asking for and you did not? Now you may argue all you want on the merits of this line of attack in the Debate, but surely you must admit that refusing to address the 1st question asked is a bad mark on bluegenes? And by address, I don't mean that bluegenes should comply, but explain why he cannot go down that rabbit hole.Oh, and BTW, how do you know the IPU is imperceptable? Maybe some IPU Priests will come forward soon and announce that the Imperceptability of the PU is only in effect for the period 1054-2054 A. D. - or that the Imperceptability is only in effect for non-believers.

---

- xongsmith, 5.7d

Straggler continues: YES. That is the kind of evidence, assuming they also presented me with things like film of the baby rabbit being born out of the mother rabbit's womb. A slam dunk, piece of cake. Not an armchair gedanken think tank result.

---

- xongsmith, 5.7d

RAZD in the Debate thread, among other things, says: So - this effectively trashes out your whole IPU line of attack, as there are most certainly not "many people" who actually do believe in the IPU....Let's cut to the chase. Are you eventually going to demand that bluegenes provide scientific objective evidence that Jesus Christ is a figment of human imagination...??

---

- xongsmith, 5.7d