Simon Paynton

Unseen wrote:
However, when I stumbled onto Laws of Form, it blew my mind.

Why did it blow your mind?  I’ve heard it said it’s like an LSD trip for mathematicians.

jakelafort wrote:
Point is all of the antecedents have to be examined to have a clear indication of why an individual is a lefty or righty. Pointing to some innate or chosen personality trait or empathy etc is misleading.

There are some personality traits that broadly correlate with left and right, but that doesn’t mean they cause them.  Left…[Read more]

jakelafort wrote:
So yeah the average Trump supporter v the average progressive? Better educated is the progressive i have to assume. Big fat hairy worthless deal. If you want to support humanist values then being a progressive is the absolute worst possible way to do so. Progressives have become what they despise. I am gonna not rant.

It’s a…[Read more]

There are always going to be hot-headed nutters.  A certain person whips them up.  You’re right, it’s not patriotic at all.  People are focused on just one or two things instead of the big picture.  I find that some of the Kamala-objecting Democrats are doing the same thing: objecting to some single issue, without caring that Donald Trump … wel…[Read more]

I guess that sounds childish, but sometimes, exasperated words fail me.

I know four people who support Trump, and they’re all exceptionally intelligent and nice.  So, I don’t get why they don’t smell him a mile off.  He’s a master manipulator.

PopeBeanie wrote:
(Hey buddy, stump rhymes with Trump!)

I guess they’re so stupid that they don’t know they’re stupid, and that Trump is stupid, and that Trump is a liar, a cheat and a fraud.

_Robert_ wrote:
Actually, even the logical construction of the premise is incorrect

You’re right.  If someone is a rapist then they are automatically a criminal.

Unseen wrote:
True premises used in an argument with a valid form must imply a true conclusion.

This is what I’m saying.  Sometimes the premises given aren’t true, but a logically-formed argument can be made out of them.

E.g.  Donald Trump – “All migrants are rapists, criminals or mental patients.”  “X is a migrant.”  Conclusion:  “X is a rapi…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
C.S. Peirce brilliantly realized that people don’t reason with propositional deduction or even with induction most of the time

Yes, but something can be logical without being true.  A clever speaker uses sophistry and emotion to sway their credulous audience.

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
– **Balance Between Reason and Imagination**: Blake did not reject reason entirely but advocated for a balance between reason and imagination. He saw the two as complementary forces

I think it’s possible to reason creatively: to come up with new ideas.

Blake sees reason not as a liberating force, but as one that c…

[Read more]

_Robert_ wrote:
Is it reasonable to bend or ignore facts?

Do Republicans ever tell the truth these days?

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
you’re using reason to make your case

I think reason is the problem half the time.  There is something in propositional logic, that states that a set of propositions can have internal validity – they are logical – they follow reason – without being true overall.

The real issue is facts.  People can reason or rat…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
That story expressed a belief in fate.

According to the 4-dimensional shape theory of the universe, all events and the space-time paths between them exist at one “time”, if “time” was dimension no. 5.

So, fate would describe that situation very well.  It’s all hard wired in, but most of us can’t see what is going to happen until it does.

@strega – that way lies madness.  There are all kinds of things we could do recursively, but we don’t, because it’s too much effort.  To Babs, 12 hours and 2 miles away was like standing on top of a hill and looking around over the countryside.  Maybe the story was centred around me because I was there.

_Robert_ wrote:
I am skeptical. The multiverse is as elusive as god is so far.

I’m not talking about the multiverse.  I’m talking about the idea that the entire history of the universe, a 4-dimensional shape, was created simultaneously, in the Big Bang.  It’s not so far-fetched.  Subjectively, we experience a 3-dimensional world as we travel fo…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:
all played out to the letter.

If Babs really was able to see twelve hours into the future, what would that tell us about the nature of space-time?  That from the point of view of the present, the future already exists.  After all, the future is a place as well as a time.

_Robert_ wrote:
A “friend of a friend” might know some things.

That’s true.  But this was before mobile phones, and none of us could confirm the prediction until I went home, when it had all played out to the letter.

Unseen wrote:
You’ve got it backward, Simon. Photons go into the eyes. They don’t shoot out of them.

Lol, the photons have to come out of a light source, bounce off something and go into your eyes.

Unseen wrote:
the mere act of observing some events (simply knowing about them, in other words) has some way of modifying them.

Surely observing requires photons to knock into and bounce off something, therefore, potentially modifying it.