What's your ontology?

[brennan]

Well, we seem to treat holes and vacuums like material objects, in a way different concepts like "nothing".

As Fifty said, a hole can cause something, but "nothing" can't cause something. If we are to say "nothing caused something", then that something would be implied to not have a cause, whereas the presence of a hole would certainly be a cause for Fifty's dripping socks!

If the presence (existence) of shoe material is required to keep Fifty's feet dry, it seems obvious that anywhere where this material is missing (non-existence) is going to be wet, without suggessting that this lack of material possesses some kind of existence itself.

 

[Mise]

The circularness of a wheel allows cars to roll down a hill. But it doesn't cause the car to get wet.

I think holes allow your feet to get wet, rather than causing them to get wet.

Not that I accept that if X causes something, then X must exist

Incidentally, does dementia exist? Shyness? Politeness? Humour? They're certainly exhibited somewhere in the universe...

And going along the same lines as "holes", does "silence" exist? I.e. the physical lack of sound?

I think it becomes just as hard to defend a belief the existence in immaterial "things" as to defend a belief in only material things.

 

[Ayatollah So]

Explain it to me like I'm a 6-year-old: what exactly does it cost us to say that holes do exist, and silence does too? Where's the penalty?

 

[Mise]

Explain it to me like I'm a 6-year-old: what exactly does it cost us to say that holes do exist, and silence does too? Where's the penalty?

Well, why does silence exist? What is it that differentiates something that "exists" from something that doesn't? Indeed, what doesn't exist?

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

what exactly does it cost us to say that holes do exist, and silence does too? Where's the penalty?

Highly educated people will mock you.

 

[Dero Zero]

I believe in things that you will not want to hear...

 

[brennan]

Explain it to me like I'm a 6-year-old: what exactly does it cost us to say that holes do exist, and silence does too? Where's the penalty?

If you are counting the lack of something as some sort of existence then your definition of existence is not terribly useful. I am not wearing a coat right now. Does my <not coat> exist? What if I decide to make half a coat and wear it, does the other half exist as some kind of potential half coat?

It's about where you draw the line.

 

[Birdjaguar]

mr. jaguar: how would you define "God"?

I thought you'd never ask.

God is that which is infinite, eternal, unchanging and permanent. Since god fills that top slot, everything else falls into the various categories of finite, temporal, changing and impermanent, which pretty much fits with what we know. Such a view does not undermine science, but merely sets the context for science and everything else.

 

[Fifty]

Exists = That which is infinite, eternal, permanent and unchanging.

God is that which is infinite, eternal, unchanging and permanent.

So, when you say "God alone is " with the "is" meant to denote "exists" in the above sense (as you seem to have said in that post). You are saying:

"That which is infinite, eternal, unchanging, and permanent alone is infinite, eternal, permanent, and unchanging?"

That's not deep or meaningful, that's a friggen tautology! All you're really doing is affirming the law of identity!

Compare it to my definitions:

God = that which is a cheeseburger.

Exists = that which is a cheeseburger.

God alone is! Cheeseburgers alone are cheeseburgers!!! woo I'm deep!

 

[Perfection]

NO FIFTY, YOU FOOL!
BIRDJAG SAID THAT EXISTANCE IS PERMANENT AND UNCHANGING WHICH IS LIKE TOTALLY DIFFERENT FROM UNCHANGING AND PERMANENT!​

 

[Birdjaguar]

So, when you say "God alone is " with the "is" meant to denote "exists" in the above sense (as you seem to have said in that post). You are saying:

"That which is infinite, eternal, unchanging, and permanent alone is infinite, eternal, permanent, and unchanging?"

That's not deep or meaningful, that's a friggen tautology! All you're really doing is affirming the law of identity!

Compare it to my definitions:
God = that which is a cheeseburger.
Exists = that which is a cheeseburger.
God alone is! Cheeseburgers alone are cheeseburgers!!! woo I'm deep!

No it is not. Your logic and language are faulty. Here is how this breaks down. With all your philosophy, you have forgotten how to see things simply.

To first use another example, this is what I said:
An apple is a fruit.
A fruit is the ripened seed-bearing part of a plant when fleshy and edible.
An apple is the ripened seed-bearing part of a plant when fleshy and edible.

You think that I said
An apple is a fruit.
A fruit is the ripened seed-bearing part of a plant when fleshy and edible.
therefore:
The ripened seed-bearing part of a plant when fleshy and edible is the ripened seed-bearing part of a plant when fleshy and edible.

You are trying too hard to make this complicated.

God alone is
Is = exists
therefore: god alone exists
Exists = that which is infinite, eternal, unchanging, and permanent
therefore: God is that which is infinite, eternal, unchanging, and permanent

"God alone exists" is just a statement. By defining "exists" I am not creating a tautology or affirming the laws of identity, just pinning down for the reader what "exists" means and substituting it in the statement. You seem to be trying to twist this into a philosophical "argument" where strange laws of logic rule.

The illogic of the old "God is love, love is blind, Ray Charles is blind, therefore RC is god" is not present either. In my statement the subject of the sentence is always "god" and it is only the description of "god" that changes. Mathematically I just did this:

10 = (5+5) God (10) = alone is/exits (5+5)
(5+5) = (3+7) exists (5+5) = that which is... (3+7)
10 = (3+7) god (10) = that which is (3+7)

It is not meant to be profound. It is just a statement of an underlying assumption. It is not unlike saying that "the universe is all that exists". Maybe you consider that profound. I don't. It is merely a position statement. Now such statements are very important to understanding they way people think about things, but they are not particularly profound.

I cannot write a "profound" statement; it is only readers who can see them that way, or not. "Profundity" is dependent upon the reader taking something of value from the words. For some "Jesus wept." is a profound verse from the Bible. For others it means nothing. Is "Jesus wept." profound?

Perhaps you know what moves people to find meaning (=profundity) in words and are an expert on what is meaningful and what is not. You certainly have taken it upon yourself to be my most vocal critic of what is meaningful and what is not.

 

[Perfection]

Yes I have put forth an uncommon definition, but before you poo poo it, can the rest of you agree on what "exists' means? Does a hole exist?

I don't need to get every idiot in the frickin' world to agree on a definition before I can criticise your definiton.

You may not like my definition, but is reasonably clear and exact and doesn't leave too many grey areas.

Yeah, so is "existence is that which is a fruitbat". Being clear and exact and without grey areas is a terrible justification for a definition.



The thing is your definition completely defies common notions of existance. When your definition bears absolutely semblance to that of common usage, then we should dismiss it as crap.

 

[Birdjaguar]

NO FIFTY, YOU FOOL!
BIRDJAG SAID THAT EXISTANCE IS PERMANENT AND UNCHANGING WHICH IS LIKE TOTALLY DIFFERENT FROM UNCHANGING AND PERMANENT!​

As a science guy Perf I would not expect you to understand this, but think of it as part of your college experience.

Statement 1 is internally redundant
That which is infinte, eternal, unchanging and permanent

and statement 2 is not:
That which is infinte, eternal, and unchanging

As statements they pretty much carry the same meaning, but for me, the redundency adds weight to the idea and the extra syllables extend the time that the reader is engaged with the idea I'm presenting. From the viewpoint of a scientific "just the facts" point of view, you are correct, but communication can be more fun than that.

I could have just said "Happy Birthday" to Chieftess, but I choose to phrase it differently:

Zeroes and ones, they&#8217;re the only two
That can fill an eight bit byte for you;
An auspicious day, without debate,
For a programmer just turned twenty eight.

So many unnecessary words.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The thing is your definition completely defies common notions of existance. When your definition bears absolutely semblance to that of common usage, then we should dismiss it as crap.

Hmmm... so common usage is the final arbitrator of what is crap and what is not? Or do you really mean "common usage among the peole who think like I do".

I wasn't advocating that my definition should supplant yours or even what the evangelicals say is real. I was merely stating what my definition was and how it it fit into my thinking.

While my defintion of "exists" may be out of the mainstream, it does not contradict science or the laws of the universe as science describes them.

I did not mean it to be so threatening.

 

[Fifty]

No it is not. Your logic and language are faulty. Here is how this breaks down. With all your philosophy, you have forgotten how to see things simply.

To first use another example, this is what I said:
An apple is a fruit.
A fruit is the ripened seed-bearing part of a plant when fleshy and edible.
An apple is the ripened seed-bearing part of a plant when fleshy and edible.

If that were the case, then you'd be giving an incorrect definition of apple. You see, when you are making a stipulative definition like that, you are supposed to be offering necessary and sufficient conditions for the thing in question, otherwise it is not a definition. The definition of an apple is *not* "the ripened seed-bearing part of a plant when fleshy and edible", because although that is a *necessary* condition on apple-hood, it is not a sufficient condition: there can be ripened seed-bearing parts of plants that are fleshy and edible, yet aren't apples. If you don't understand what it is to give a definition, that aint my problem!

You think that I said
An apple is a fruit.
A fruit is the ripened seed-bearing part of a plant when fleshy and edible.
therefore:
The ripened seed-bearing part of a plant when fleshy and edible is the ripened seed-bearing part of a plant when fleshy and edible.

No, I don't think you said that. The statement "an apple is a fruit" is not a definition of an apple. You're equivocating on the word "is" in your alleged analogy!

God alone is
Is = exists
therefore: god alone exists
Exists = that which is infinite, eternal, unchanging, and permanent
therefore: God is that which is infinite, eternal, unchanging, and permanent

Again, you seem to be equivocating! When you say "exists = that which is infinite..." then you seem to be offering a genuine definition. But when you then infer "God is that which is infinite..." from your assumption that God alone is, you are not defining God, you are simply making an inference of this sort:

1. God exists (starting assumption)
2. "Exists" is defined as "that which is infinite, eternal, unchanging, and permanent"
3. Therefore, God is infinite, unchanging, eternal, and permanent.

Now, even if I grant you that starting assumption, all that you've done is prove that God exemplifies the properties of being infinite, unchanging, eternal, and permanent. You haven't defined God at all! You've just said "God exists, and something that exists has such and such properties, so God has such and such properties". I hope you can see how this isn't a definition of God!

So I ask again: How do you define the term "God"?

"God alone exists" is just a statement. By defining "exists" I am not creating a tautology or affirming the laws of identity, just pinning down for the reader what "exists" means and substituting it in the statement. You seem to be trying to twist this into a philosophical "argument" where strange laws of logic rule.

I'm not even sure what the heck you are trying to say here, so I'll just ask this. How precisely is what you are doing different than the following dialogue:

Grimace: God alone is
Hamburgler: Hey Grimace! Interesting thesis! I wonder, though, how do you define the term "God"?
Grimace: "God" = That which is a cheeseburger.
Hamburgler: Cool! So, my next question is, how do you define the term "exist"?
Grimace: "exist" = That which is a cheeseburger.
Hamburgler: So, plugging in your definitions, when you say "God alone is" you are saying "That which is a cheeseburger alone is a cheeseburger"?
Hamburgler: No! um... (mutters something about apples)

The illogic of the old "God is love, love is blind, Ray Charles is blind, therefore RC is god" is not present either. In my statement the subject of the sentence is always "god" and it is only the description of "god" that changes. Mathematically I just did this:

10 = (5+5) God (10) = alone is/exits (5+5)
(5+5) = (3+7) exists (5+5) = that which is... (3+7)
10 = (3+7) god (10) = that which is (3+7)

I have absolutely no idea what you are saying here.

It is not meant to be profound. It is just a statement of an underlying assumption. It is not unlike saying that "the universe is all that exists". Maybe you consider that profound. I don't. It is merely a position statement. Now such statements are very important to understanding they way people think about things, but they are not particularly profound.

Its very far from profound! It's not the least bit interesting. It's not an assumption either, its a necessary truth! It's the exactly analogous to saying "a water bottle is a watter bottle" or "a chair is a chair".

Perhaps you know what moves people to find meaning (=profundity) in words and are an expert on what is meaningful and what is not. You certainly have taken it upon yourself to be my most vocal critic of what is meaningful and what is not.

Meaning is not the same thing as profundity! When I used the word meaning, I roughly meant "of any interest to anyone". When your definitions are tantamount to affirming a trivially true identity claim, they are absolutely uninteresting! I don't just mean that as someone who doesn't share your "worldview". They are as uninteresting as saying "I'm going to start my world view with the assumption that a water bottle is a water bottle".

 

[Perfection]

Hmmm... so common usage is the final arbitrator of what is crap and what is not? Or do you really mean "common usage among the peole who think like I do".

Well the point of a language is that words have common meanings, in English your definition of existance is completely unlike what English speakers believe. I don't think this is particular to any subset of English speakers and is infact common among all English speakers; I'm pretty certain that my definition of existence (which Fifty roughly described earlier) is pretty congruent to those of different philosophical beliefs. MobBoss and I surely will disagree about what fits the definition of existance (e.g. God), but I bet we could come together and agree on a reasonably coherant definition of existance.

The point is that you shouldn't change the meanings of words against common usage. The whole point of language is that we all agree on the meanings of words!

I wasn't advocating that my definition should supplant yours or even what the evangelicals say is real. I was merely stating what my definition was and how it it fit into my thinking.

While my defintion of "exists" may be out of the mainstream, it does not contradict science or the laws of the universe as science describes them.

I did not mean it to be so threatening.

I think what may be going on here is your using a definition of "existence" to indicate your belief about what exists rather then the meaning of "existence" You should keep those seperate.

 

[Mise]

Isn't BJ just saying "anything that possesses XYZ properties exists; God possesses XYZ properties; therefore God exists", and then went on to define God as "anything that possesses XYZ properties is God"?

It makes no rational sense, and is a completely useless, vacuous, circular set of statements, but it still makes logical sense, doesn't it?

 

[Fifty]

Isn't BJ just saying "anything that possesses XYZ properties exists; God possesses XYZ properties; therefore God exists", and then went on to define God as "anything that possesses XYZ properties is God"?

It makes no rational sense, and is a completely useless, vacuous, circular set of statements, but it still makes logical sense, doesn't it?

Nah, that doesn't really seem to be what he is doing. In what you said, a roughly normal sense of existence is being used. BJ specifically and clearly defined "exists" in his own way. And that's completely fine, we can grant him whatever stipulative definitions he wants (although it might be a little disingenuous, but thats no big deal). The main problem is that he goes on to specifically and clearly define God in exactly the same manner that he defines "exists". Its one thing to draw some inference from an assumption that God exists, like:

(1) God exists (assumption)
(2) "exists" is defined as "being such that [the subject] has property set P (infinite, eternal, etc.)
(3) Therefore, God has property set P.

Notice how in the move from (1)-(3), we haven't defined God at all. We may have established that God necessarily has certain properties if we grant that (1) is true, but we haven't defined God. The term "God" can mean anything in the move from (1)-(3) and the argument would still be perfectly valid. In fact, it might even give us some insight into someone's worldview. But BJ does define God. What he does is something like this:

(1) God exists (assumption)
(2) "exists" is defined as "being such that [the subject] has property set P (infinite, eternal, etc.)
(3) "God" is defined as "that which is infinite, eternal, etc."

You can see how, in this case, the "assumption" is just an affirmation of the law of identity, and is completely uninteresting: everyone everywhere, no matter what their worldview, ought to accept (1) on those definitions, or risk denying a law of logic that is obvious to any 5 year old. It doesn't give us insight into any worldview, other than perhaps the thought that it is odd to base a worldview off an affirmation of identity (although the Randroids do just that )

I mean, I'm not harping at him at all about his assumption that God exists. Even granting that God exists and has exactly the traits he describes, his definitions are still completely useless. All he's done is make an inference showing that whatever God is, it has those properties. He hasn't defined God. In order to define something, you have to specify necessary and sufficient conditions for it, which he hasn't done.

There are basically three ways he can get out of it:

1. Admit he gave a crappy definition of God, and simply set the record straight with a new one.
2. Take a more commonsense notion of "exists".
3. Maintain he has done nothing wrong, make snide and immature comments about how I don't understand "language and logic", and hope that this thread falls to page 2 ASAP.

I hope he chooses 1 or 2, because I'm genuinely interested in figuring out what this "God alone is " business actually amounts to!

 

[Ayatollah So]

Well, why does silence exist? [...] Indeed, what doesn't exist?

Bob describes the meeting:
"After the boss announced the job cuts, there was a half-minute silence before anyone could even manage a groan."
Bob's description is true, and it contains the words "there was a ... silence". That's a pretty good reason to admit that silences exist. Ontology recapitulates philology - as a philosopher named Quine once said.

As for what doesn't exist, let's look at paradigm examples: the lake you thought you saw in the desert (it was a mirage), the con man's sick mother, unicorns. In each case we have some qualities attributed, that don't match the qualities of the spacetime region in question. That desert contains no water. The con man's mother has been dead 10 years, she doesn't need money for an operation. And those horses have no horns.

Now how about that hole in Fifty's sneaker. You really can put your finger through it. It lets the water in. It pretty much fits the bill that those who claim there's a hole have laid out.

 

[brennan]

So there's a word for an absence of sound and and another for an absence of shoe. Big deal.

There's a word for nonexistence as well. I just typed it. Does that mean nonexistence exists?