Jim

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]

@ Simon

No. True premises used in an argument with a valid form must imply a true conclusion. If it doesn’t, there is a disturbance in the force.

If you disagree, provide an example.

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]

Simon Paynton wrote:
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.

C.S. Peirce brilliantly realized that people don’t reason with propositional deduction or even with i…[Read more]

I have a tattoo of Urizen (You-Reason) on a shoulder blade.

From Chatgpt:

Urizen is a character created by the English poet and artist William Blake, who appears prominently in his series of prophetic books, particularly “The Book of Urizen” (1794). Blake’s Urizen is a complex figure representing law, reason, and order, but also the limitations…[Read more]

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

Do Republicans ever tell the truth these days?

Simon Paynton wrote:

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…

[Read more]

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]

Thanks Reg!

Have a great week everyone! Did all y’all enjoy the game in Dublin 🙂

Reason is non-negotiable. Try to argue against it, or to exclude it from some realm of knowledge, and you’ve already lost the argument, because you’re using reason to make your case. And no, this isn’t having “faith” in reason (in the same way that some people have faith in mi…[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.

Unseen wrote:

_Robert_ wrote:
If a Galton board is tilted-off just a bit…well, a pinball machine will tell you.

Well, I’m sure a competent scientist would work hard to make sure the experiment was “on the level.”

I would not doubt it if they were actually measuring the tolerances of the device itself. Once you make it essentially perfect you wil…[Read more]

_Robert_ wrote:
If a Galton board is tilted-off just a bit…well, a pinball machine will tell you.

Well, I’m sure a competent scientist would work hard to make sure the experiment was “on the level.”

If a Galton board is tilted-off just a bit…well, a pinball machine will tell you.

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
…such experiments are viewed with skepticism and their results have not been reliably replicated, they are often relegated to the fringes of scientific discourse. This might explain why it’s challenging to find direct references to the specific experiment you recall.

JB Rhine’s claimed successes were eventually d…[Read more]

@Unseen – My A.I. returned this:

The experiment you’re describing sounds like a variant of a Galton board (also known as a Quincunx), which is a device invented by Sir Francis Galton to demonstrate the central limit theorem. In a Galton board, balls are dropped from the top and bounce through an array of pins, with the outcome forming a normal…[Read more]

I thought you could find anything on the internet, but I can’t find this.

I distinctly remember on one of NPR’s serious talk shows a discussion of psychokinesis, and they talk ended up centering on experiment that tended to suggest some such ability even if weak.

The experiment consisted of a glass-encased board with a square matrix of…[Read more]

I don’t know the name of it, unfortunately, but there was a sci fi novel or short story about a man who wanted to go back in time to “fix” something (the death of someone important to him) and while he succeeded in going back in time, no matter what he did or how he changed the antecedent circumstances, they would still die then somehow.

That…[Read more]