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GreatWyrm of Babylon · Sep 27, 2003, 08:31 pm

Reason is not a God, nor even an absolute of any kind. It is merely a process that allows errors to be continuously corrected for. Scientific process is a form of reason as is mathematics, and engineering.

The first step is a guess, just like any other process. It does not really matter what the guess is as long as it is well documented. Next you observe the results and make a second guess, preferrably only changing a single element. You observe the different result and try to use what you observe for future guesses.
#1 You throw a ball into the air by dropping a known weight on the other side of a lever. You then measure the distance it travels, and drop a different size weight. From this you can figure out the relationship between movement and mass.
#2 You observe that laws are being ignored, so decide that more police to enforce the law, or reducing the number of laws to where the police can enforce them are the only reasonable solutions.
#3 You observe that man has killed each other since the beginning of time, so you try to figure out what measures reduce this other than trying to remove anything that can kill.
#4 You observe that man cannot exist without government, so you accept government but work to see how little of we can get rid of.

I define any other method as irrationality, because the actual results hinge more on opinion than any trackable evidence.
Examples:
#1 Deciding that abortion should be illegal because 'God' says so. We have no evidence to observe that anything actually happened much less what it was, so this is irrational.
#2 You pass laws and observe that 10% of these laws are broken on a regular basis, so you decide that you need more laws.
#3 You observe that men have killed each other as long as written history has existed, so you conclude that banning guns will stop the killing.
#4 Man cannot exist without government, so you invent a form of government where the government vanishes after it is established and expect it to work.

Geoff332 · Sep 27, 2003, 08:43 pm

So the definition of rationality is, "a process that allows for errors to be corrected."

So then all of rationality rests on what is an error, how do we recognise it and how do we correct for them.

So, we start with the start: what is an error?

Let me explain why this is important. According to your definition, anything that corrects for errors is rational. If I define anything that is not following the laws of God as being an error, and establish a process whereby this is corrected, then that is rational, according to your definition.

GreatWyrm of Babylon · Sep 27, 2003, 08:47 pm

You may want to read the entire sentence before attacking it. I also stated that since following a set of laws that does not produce observations gives no feedback it is not rational.

Geoff332 · Sep 27, 2003, 09:12 pm

I still want to know how you define "error". Can you define that, or does your defintion rest on something you cannot define?

GreatWyrm of Babylon · Sep 27, 2003, 09:28 pm

Error: the standard deviation by which the desired result was not met. Does your mind not define anything? Do I need to define "is" for you? Are you capable of constructive thought, or a perpetual critic with no ability to create?

RebelWithanAK · Sep 28, 2003, 01:30 am

GreatWyrm, Geoff is going along this line of questioning because he (and I, for that matter) does not follow your line of logic, from concept to conclusion. You make an inordinate amount of leaps in your reasoning, things you do not fully explain, but are paramount to understanding how you reach your conclusion - specifically, that progressives are irrational...

That, and...

#2 You pass laws and observe that 10% of these laws are broken on a regular basis, so you decide that you need more laws.

The basis of law is not the problem - the nonenforcement of certain laws is. In other words, either repeal the law (like jaywalking) or enforce it (like DWI), because unenforced laws just breed contempt for the law. Unfortunately, this is a difficult thing to attain from on high the senate floor, because it is an awkward way of attacking such a problem. It is even more of a difficult thing to change from the grassroots path, mainly because of the grand size of the state and government districts as compared to local power.

#3 You observe that men have killed each other as long as written history has existed, so you conclude that banning guns will stop the killing.

Banning guns will not stop killing. Banning guns will exponentially limit a specific subset of killing - ie, killings by gun. We don't let knives in schools, now do we?

#4 Man cannot exist without government, so you invent a form of government where the government vanishes after it is established and expect it to work.

Man can exist without a nationalist federal government - a set of rule is not the problem. Every village has a set of rule. However, nationalist tendencies are not inherent, nor are they particularly beneficial in a number of ways.

Now, you use "You" a lot of times in your hypotheticals. Care to explain who "You" is?

GreatWyrm of Babylon · Sep 28, 2003, 01:46 am

'You' is the person making the observation, have you joined the collective and forgotten what an individual is?

If you want to pick on my word choices could you please match your verb and subject tense?

Geoff332 · Sep 28, 2003, 06:27 am

I'm asking you this because most of the key terms you are using can be defined in several different ways. And it's always fun to see if you really make them work. So, let's put them together and see if it makes sense.
Reason is:

Quote:

It is merely a process that allows errors to be continuously corrected for.

Error is:

Quote:

the standard deviation by which the desired result was not met

So, reason must be a process that allows the standard deviations by which the desired result was not met to be continuously corrected for. The word desired kind of leaps out there. And 'standard deviation' is a statistical term, implying then that only things that can be measured statstically are considered reason.

Anyway, let's pursue another line of thought.

Quote:

I also stated that since following a set of laws that does not produce observations gives no feedback it is not rational.

Can you please tell me what obersvations that following this particular dictum would produce, how you would test that and how you would notice any errors in that testing?

GreatWyrm of Babylon · Sep 28, 2003, 09:12 am

First, please define every word in your post not using words, since you have not defined any yet...

BTW: Just so you can get in touch with the crap you are putting me through, I will devote myself to pointing out the logical fallicies in all of your posts just so that you can see that it does not generate respect for the sniper...

fedfem · Sep 28, 2003, 12:57 pm

GWB-Reason is not as complicated as your initial posts makes it out to be.IMO

I think you started with the concept but muddled it with adding additional "guesses".

It is additional "facts" not guesses that are to be applied. An opinion is simply an opinion. A reasoned opinion is one backed up by facts. One of the biggest complaints I have, as far as debating with you and a few others, is that you rarely present a reasoned opinion. It makes it impossible to have a true debate. As far as errors, I would say that Reason should rely on additional facts. Errors are of opinion only.

Hope I made my point here.

Geoff332 · Sep 28, 2003, 05:30 pm

GWB - you really don't have a clue on what a debate or a philosophy actually is, do you?

In any case, your effort to explain what you think reason is has left me mnore convinced than ever that you have no idea.

RebelWithanAK · Sep 28, 2003, 05:44 pm

The explanation is bad enough; the constant deflecting and flat-out insults make it mindboggling to continue...

GreatWyrm of Babylon · Sep 30, 2003, 07:47 am

Geoff
I know that you are a craven coward, because you wait on confirmation and then make personal attacks. You have as yet to offer anything except crying that I am not debating in your style.

FemFed
As far as the 'guesses' those were to satisfy the 'sniper god' geoff. You are simply taking an oppertunity because we do not agree on all things...

Rebel
You and Geoff are the ones deflecting and insulting. Can you do nothing more than low-road debate?

All
If my ability to debate was the problem I would be losing a debate. So far no one is actually debating me, it has been nearly 100% personal attacks on my ability to post rather than debate. My ability to debate has gone mostly untested.

If you consider debate the posting of someone else's opinion and sitting back and attacking anyone that does not agree, you need a good lesson in 'self esteem'...

I happen to belong to an egoist philosophy, do you expect me to debate that way? Get real. Or to even care if I am the only one on 'my' side?

Geoff332 · Sep 30, 2003, 08:22 am

Personal attacks? I asked you to clarify your definition -- to which you seem unable to respond with anything resembling civility. You may think you are winning this debate, but in my eyes, you're making yourself look like a person who has no idea what they're talking about.

I'm sure you'll tell me I'm wrong. But you won't be able to produce anything resembling an argument to prove it. If you do the latter, I listen. When you do the former, I ignore it. SO far, we have the latter.

GreatWyrm of Babylon · Sep 30, 2003, 10:55 am

This is not a debate, this is a pissing contest. You fail to recognize that most of what you are calling "debate" is devices built up for a philosophy that I do not adhere to. Things that you consider non-issues I do not, and things that I consider the same you do not. Until we iron that problem out, this cannot be a debate. But since you do not recognize that the structure you are argueing from was made by your philosophical heirs, I have nothing to say to you.

Geoff332 · Sep 30, 2003, 07:07 pm

Quote:

Things that you consider non-issues I do not, and things that I consider the same you do not.

Which is exactly why I asked you to define things -- so that I wouldn't make those mistakes. But, apparently, that's not debating. As I said, many of the key terms you use are ambiguous. Until I know how you define them, I can't really respond to what you say -- because I don't know what it means.

When you don't respond, whether it's because you're unwilling or unable I have no idea, it would be follish of me to guess at what you mean.

GreatWyrm of Babylon · Oct 1, 2003, 10:45 pm

According to what you posted in the philosophy topic, you regard all knowledge as unprovable. While I am quite capable of following that line of reasoning and even able to accept that it has a certain validity, I do not care for any self-defeating conclusions. While we must always realize that any philosophy does contain error, that error should ideally be minimized. I do not know if I can help you if you do not understand what I define as error. Error in my usage is simply any wrong conclusion.

One of the points I wish to make is that all philosophy must update when presented with evidence that modifies the foundation. Actions of the individual are not inherently evil or good they are of high and low probability of furthering the desired end.

Even killing is not an inherently 'evil' action, it is merely of a low probability because achieving creation through an act of destruction is only valid in a preventive sense. Therefore the killing of one that wastes the efforts of others but gives nothing in return is sometimes a neccasary outcome, from a reasoned point of view their motive and state of mind are not relevant, it is the cost of deferring their damage that should be the only consideration. IOW: If we can reform the man, and expect to break even or lose little we should do so, if the cost of reform is great enough that society must carry the cost, the man has no right to expect us to pay it.

The man that thinks that simply living should be of no cost to him is working from a flawed image of the world. When the world produced enough food for the taking with a low population this image made sense. As population pressure has increased it now takes considerable human effort to make the world support the mass of humanity. Therefore a man that does not produce at least as much effort that it takes to feed him, is a burden, even if a relatively cheap one. If all humanity decided to let his brothers feed him, we would soon die back to that level where the world could again support us. Therefore that man that refuses to support himself is imposing force on the rest of us to move to that primative state, a right that he does not own.

One of the obsticles that rational philosophy has always faced is that the church does not like it. It does not suit the power structure of the church when a man points out that they are using flawed logic, so rather than allow that man power over them they have used scripture to attempt to destroy reasoned process.

The church demands that we serve others before ourselves, but that is silly because we know what we want and can therefore serve our own needs much more effectively than allowing another to serve them because he would have to guess what we need. It is therefore much more logical that every man attend to his need first because he will waste less resourses tending to what he knows. You may then try to convince him to use his extra resources to further the means of others, but done correctly that should also benefit him as well in the long term. Of course this does not mean that every man must grow his own food and find his own water, a man should do what he is best suited to do and trade those resourses with other men that do the same in order to maximize resource. Done correctly this will minimize the cost of all things, because everything will be done by the man that can do so with the least effort. Supply and demand would lower the costs and increase the resources until an optimium point is reached.

Geoff332 · Oct 2, 2003, 01:56 am

Quote:

According to what you posted in the philosophy topic, you regard all knowledge as unprovable. While I am quite capable of following that line of reasoning and even able to accept that it has a certain validity, I do not care for any self-defeating conclusions. While we must always realize that any philosophy does contain error, that error should ideally be minimized.

Several issue there.

1. If knowledge is genuinely unprovable, how is admitting this self-defeating?
2. Isn't the assumption that knowledge is provable logically unprovable (that's not really a question, but a statement of fact).
3. The reason you give for not following a that particular line of reasoning is that you "don't care" for it. There's nothing wrong with that statement, but when you earlier argue that all things are only guesses until you compare them to observations. I still want to know what you could observe that would validate (or invalidate) you position.
4. Given I have never really articulated my philosophical position, you seem to know an awful lot about what I think.

GreatWyrm of Babylon · Oct 3, 2003, 09:23 pm

#1 Human psychology.
#2 So what?
#3 Then name a paticular.
#4 That is precisely what I have wanted you to admit for quite a while. Are you afraid of commitment? Or, being an intellectual sniper, do you realize that would cost you your advantage?

Geoff332 · Oct 4, 2003, 07:55 am

1. That's not an answer.; it's an evasion.
2. Therefore rationalism is irrational, meaning that one who is rational should not be rational. As far as paradoxes go, that one's pretty straight forward. More importantly, there are no gorund by which one should consider rationalism supperior to any other form of knowledge. Basically, your argument refutes itsaelf, making it untenable as a logical argument. It is illogical (and therefore irrational).
3. Let me rephrase: if the best argument you can come up with (and so far it's the only one), is that rationalism is a preference, rather than a logically derived philsophy, then it's hardly a belief system that I am going to take seriously.
4. What I believe has nothing to do with the validity and logical consistency of your arguments (that's a form of an adhominum fallacy). If your argument is illogical (which I have demonstrated that it is, and you have refused to refute), then what I or anyone else (including yourself) believes will have absolutely no impact on lack of logic. Attempting to claim the moral high-ground on the basis of an illogical philosophy that you refuse to define the key terms is laughable.

Finally, I'm not telling you to believe what I believe. Nor do I expect you to change what you believe (you're obviously committed to it, so I that would be futile). I merely hope that other people reading this will realise that you have never adequately described rationalism and, to the extent that you have, it's logically inconsistent.

Call what I do intellectual sniping if you will. I really don't care. It's philosophical critique, and if you don't like it, I suggest you leave philosophy alone.

Sep 27, 2003, 08:31 pm	#1 (permalink) (top)
GreatWyrm of Babylon Avatar of Tiamut Location: Dallas, Texas (Irving) Posts: 848	Reason is not a God, nor even an absolute of any kind. It is merely a process that allows errors to be continuously corrected for. Scientific process is a form of reason as is mathematics, and engineering. The first step is a guess, just like any other process. It does not really matter what the guess is as long as it is well documented. Next you observe the results and make a second guess, preferrably only changing a single element. You observe the different result and try to use what you observe for future guesses. #1 You throw a ball into the air by dropping a known weight on the other side of a lever. You then measure the distance it travels, and drop a different size weight. From this you can figure out the relationship between movement and mass. #2 You observe that laws are being ignored, so decide that more police to enforce the law, or reducing the number of laws to where the police can enforce them are the only reasonable solutions. #3 You observe that man has killed each other since the beginning of time, so you try to figure out what measures reduce this other than trying to remove anything that can kill. #4 You observe that man cannot exist without government, so you accept government but work to see how little of we can get rid of. I define any other method as irrationality, because the actual results hinge more on opinion than any trackable evidence. Examples: #1 Deciding that abortion should be illegal because 'God' says so. We have no evidence to observe that anything actually happened much less what it was, so this is irrational. #2 You pass laws and observe that 10% of these laws are broken on a regular basis, so you decide that you need more laws. #3 You observe that men have killed each other as long as written history has existed, so you conclude that banning guns will stop the killing. #4 Man cannot exist without government, so you invent a form of government where the government vanishes after it is established and expect it to work. Logical Fallicies Link

Sep 28, 2003, 01:30 am	#6 (permalink) (top)
RebelWithanAK Igneous Magma Location: New York City Posts: 739	GreatWyrm, Geoff is going along this line of questioning because he (and I, for that matter) does not follow your line of logic, from concept to conclusion. You make an inordinate amount of leaps in your reasoning, things you do not fully explain, but are paramount to understanding how you reach your conclusion - specifically, that progressives are irrational... That, and... #2 You pass laws and observe that 10% of these laws are broken on a regular basis, so you decide that you need more laws. The basis of law is not the problem - the nonenforcement of certain laws is. In other words, either repeal the law (like jaywalking) or enforce it (like DWI), because unenforced laws just breed contempt for the law. Unfortunately, this is a difficult thing to attain from on high the senate floor, because it is an awkward way of attacking such a problem. It is even more of a difficult thing to change from the grassroots path, mainly because of the grand size of the state and government districts as compared to local power. #3 You observe that men have killed each other as long as written history has existed, so you conclude that banning guns will stop the killing. Banning guns will not stop killing. Banning guns will exponentially limit a specific subset of killing - ie, killings by gun. We don't let knives in schools, now do we? #4 Man cannot exist without government, so you invent a form of government where the government vanishes after it is established and expect it to work. Man can exist without a nationalist federal government - a set of rule is not the problem. Every village has a set of rule. However, nationalist tendencies are not inherent, nor are they particularly beneficial in a number of ways. Now, you use "You" a lot of times in your hypotheticals. Care to explain who "You" is? . . . whenever any government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such forms as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Sep 28, 2003, 09:12 am	#9 (permalink) (top)
GreatWyrm of Babylon Avatar of Tiamut Location: Dallas, Texas (Irving) Posts: 848	First, please define every word in your post not using words, since you have not defined any yet... BTW: Just so you can get in touch with the crap you are putting me through, I will devote myself to pointing out the logical fallicies in all of your posts just so that you can see that it does not generate respect for the sniper... Logical Fallicies Link

Sep 28, 2003, 05:44 pm	#12 (permalink) (top)
RebelWithanAK Igneous Magma Location: New York City Posts: 739	The explanation is bad enough; the constant deflecting and flat-out insults make it mindboggling to continue... . . . whenever any government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such forms as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Sep 30, 2003, 07:47 am	#13 (permalink) (top)
GreatWyrm of Babylon Avatar of Tiamut Location: Dallas, Texas (Irving) Posts: 848	Geoff I know that you are a craven coward, because you wait on confirmation and then make personal attacks. You have as yet to offer anything except crying that I am not debating in your style. FemFed As far as the 'guesses' those were to satisfy the 'sniper god' geoff. You are simply taking an oppertunity because we do not agree on all things... Rebel You and Geoff are the ones deflecting and insulting. Can you do nothing more than low-road debate? All If my ability to debate was the problem I would be losing a debate. So far no one is actually debating me, it has been nearly 100% personal attacks on my ability to post rather than debate. My ability to debate has gone mostly untested. If you consider debate the posting of someone else's opinion and sitting back and attacking anyone that does not agree, you need a good lesson in 'self esteem'... I happen to belong to an egoist philosophy, do you expect me to debate that way? Get real. Or to even care if I am the only one on 'my' side? Logical Fallicies Link

Sep 27, 2003, 08:43 pm	#2 (permalink) (top)
Geoff332 Igneous Magma Location: New Zealand Posts: 309	So the definition of rationality is, "a process that allows for errors to be corrected." So then all of rationality rests on what is an error, how do we recognise it and how do we correct for them. So, we start with the start: what is an error? Let me explain why this is important. According to your definition, anything that corrects for errors is rational. If I define anything that is not following the laws of God as being an error, and establish a process whereby this is corrected, then that is rational, according to your definition.

Sep 27, 2003, 08:47 pm	#3 (permalink) (top)
GreatWyrm of Babylon Avatar of Tiamut Location: Dallas, Texas (Irving) Posts: 848	You may want to read the entire sentence before attacking it. I also stated that since following a set of laws that does not produce observations gives no feedback it is not rational.

Sep 27, 2003, 09:12 pm	#4 (permalink) (top)
Geoff332 Igneous Magma Location: New Zealand Posts: 309	I still want to know how you define "error". Can you define that, or does your defintion rest on something you cannot define?

Sep 27, 2003, 09:28 pm	#5 (permalink) (top)
GreatWyrm of Babylon Avatar of Tiamut Location: Dallas, Texas (Irving) Posts: 848	Error: the standard deviation by which the desired result was not met. Does your mind not define anything? Do I need to define "is" for you? Are you capable of constructive thought, or a perpetual critic with no ability to create?

Sep 28, 2003, 01:46 am	#7 (permalink) (top)
GreatWyrm of Babylon Avatar of Tiamut Location: Dallas, Texas (Irving) Posts: 848	'You' is the person making the observation, have you joined the collective and forgotten what an individual is? If you want to pick on my word choices could you please match your verb and subject tense?

Sep 28, 2003, 12:57 pm	#10 (permalink) (top)
fedfem Igneous Magma Location: Northeastern, USA Posts: 606	GWB-Reason is not as complicated as your initial posts makes it out to be.IMO I think you started with the concept but muddled it with adding additional "guesses". It is additional "facts" not guesses that are to be applied. An opinion is simply an opinion. A reasoned opinion is one backed up by facts. One of the biggest complaints I have, as far as debating with you and a few others, is that you rarely present a reasoned opinion. It makes it impossible to have a true debate. As far as errors, I would say that Reason should rely on additional facts. Errors are of opinion only. Hope I made my point here.

Sep 28, 2003, 05:30 pm	#11 (permalink) (top)
Geoff332 Igneous Magma Location: New Zealand Posts: 309	GWB - you really don't have a clue on what a debate or a philosophy actually is, do you? In any case, your effort to explain what you think reason is has left me mnore convinced than ever that you have no idea.

Sep 30, 2003, 08:22 am	#14 (permalink) (top)
Geoff332 Igneous Magma Location: New Zealand Posts: 309	Personal attacks? I asked you to clarify your definition -- to which you seem unable to respond with anything resembling civility. You may think you are winning this debate, but in my eyes, you're making yourself look like a person who has no idea what they're talking about. I'm sure you'll tell me I'm wrong. But you won't be able to produce anything resembling an argument to prove it. If you do the latter, I listen. When you do the former, I ignore it. SO far, we have the latter.

Sep 30, 2003, 10:55 am	#15 (permalink) (top)
GreatWyrm of Babylon Avatar of Tiamut Location: Dallas, Texas (Irving) Posts: 848	This is not a debate, this is a pissing contest. You fail to recognize that most of what you are calling "debate" is devices built up for a philosophy that I do not adhere to. Things that you consider non-issues I do not, and things that I consider the same you do not. Until we iron that problem out, this cannot be a debate. But since you do not recognize that the structure you are argueing from was made by your philosophical heirs, I have nothing to say to you. Logical Fallicies Link

Oct 1, 2003, 10:45 pm	#17 (permalink) (top)
GreatWyrm of Babylon Avatar of Tiamut Location: Dallas, Texas (Irving) Posts: 848	According to what you posted in the philosophy topic, you regard all knowledge as unprovable. While I am quite capable of following that line of reasoning and even able to accept that it has a certain validity, I do not care for any self-defeating conclusions. While we must always realize that any philosophy does contain error, that error should ideally be minimized. I do not know if I can help you if you do not understand what I define as error. Error in my usage is simply any wrong conclusion. One of the points I wish to make is that all philosophy must update when presented with evidence that modifies the foundation. Actions of the individual are not inherently evil or good they are of high and low probability of furthering the desired end. Even killing is not an inherently 'evil' action, it is merely of a low probability because achieving creation through an act of destruction is only valid in a preventive sense. Therefore the killing of one that wastes the efforts of others but gives nothing in return is sometimes a neccasary outcome, from a reasoned point of view their motive and state of mind are not relevant, it is the cost of deferring their damage that should be the only consideration. IOW: If we can reform the man, and expect to break even or lose little we should do so, if the cost of reform is great enough that society must carry the cost, the man has no right to expect us to pay it. The man that thinks that simply living should be of no cost to him is working from a flawed image of the world. When the world produced enough food for the taking with a low population this image made sense. As population pressure has increased it now takes considerable human effort to make the world support the mass of humanity. Therefore a man that does not produce at least as much effort that it takes to feed him, is a burden, even if a relatively cheap one. If all humanity decided to let his brothers feed him, we would soon die back to that level where the world could again support us. Therefore that man that refuses to support himself is imposing force on the rest of us to move to that primative state, a right that he does not own. One of the obsticles that rational philosophy has always faced is that the church does not like it. It does not suit the power structure of the church when a man points out that they are using flawed logic, so rather than allow that man power over them they have used scripture to attempt to destroy reasoned process. The church demands that we serve others before ourselves, but that is silly because we know what we want and can therefore serve our own needs much more effectively than allowing another to serve them because he would have to guess what we need. It is therefore much more logical that every man attend to his need first because he will waste less resourses tending to what he knows. You may then try to convince him to use his extra resources to further the means of others, but done correctly that should also benefit him as well in the long term. Of course this does not mean that every man must grow his own food and find his own water, a man should do what he is best suited to do and trade those resourses with other men that do the same in order to maximize resource. Done correctly this will minimize the cost of all things, because everything will be done by the man that can do so with the least effort. Supply and demand would lower the costs and increase the resources until an optimium point is reached. Logical Fallicies Link

Oct 3, 2003, 09:23 pm	#19 (permalink) (top)
GreatWyrm of Babylon Avatar of Tiamut Location: Dallas, Texas (Irving) Posts: 848	#1 Human psychology. #2 So what? #3 Then name a paticular. #4 That is precisely what I have wanted you to admit for quite a while. Are you afraid of commitment? Or, being an intellectual sniper, do you realize that would cost you your advantage?

Oct 4, 2003, 07:55 am	#20 (permalink) (top)
Geoff332 Igneous Magma Location: New Zealand Posts: 309	1. That's not an answer.; it's an evasion. 2. Therefore rationalism is irrational, meaning that one who is rational should not be rational. As far as paradoxes go, that one's pretty straight forward. More importantly, there are no gorund by which one should consider rationalism supperior to any other form of knowledge. Basically, your argument refutes itsaelf, making it untenable as a logical argument. It is illogical (and therefore irrational). 3. Let me rephrase: if the best argument you can come up with (and so far it's the only one), is that rationalism is a preference, rather than a logically derived philsophy, then it's hardly a belief system that I am going to take seriously. 4. What I believe has nothing to do with the validity and logical consistency of your arguments (that's a form of an adhominum fallacy). If your argument is illogical (which I have demonstrated that it is, and you have refused to refute), then what I or anyone else (including yourself) believes will have absolutely no impact on lack of logic. Attempting to claim the moral high-ground on the basis of an illogical philosophy that you refuse to define the key terms is laughable. Finally, I'm not telling you to believe what I believe. Nor do I expect you to change what you believe (you're obviously committed to it, so I that would be futile). I merely hope that other people reading this will realise that you have never adequately described rationalism and, to the extent that you have, it's logically inconsistent. Call what I do intellectual sniping if you will. I really don't care. It's philosophical critique, and if you don't like it, I suggest you leave philosophy alone.