tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post7269891037191878993..comments2024-03-18T11:10:18.708-07:00Comments on dangerous idea: Lofty Thoughts By Loftus on LoftusVictor Repperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10962948073162156902noreply@blogger.comBlogger191125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-27523603856555909602010-09-24T13:09:48.326-07:002010-09-24T13:09:48.326-07:00Loftus says, "I truly have low expectations a...Loftus says, "I truly have low expectations about our ability to reason with each other. That's why we MUST lean on the sciences for the evidence to believe. That's what Blanchard continues to miss."<br /><br />I wonder where have I missed this - certainly not in this thread, although apparently I am in good company (Loftus lists Plantinga and Swinburne). I don't know about Loftus, but I think getting to conclusions via evidence and reasons is a good thing. Loftus evidently thinks that where our "ability to reason with each other" fails, "evidence" comes in. His he just saying that all our arguments shouldn't be a priori? Is Loftus saying anything at all here? He either thinks we should resort to counter-brainwashing or he doesn't. Sounds like he doesn't want to reason, but he wants to rely on evidence. Can anything be salvaged from Loftus' comments?<br /><br />Loftus says, "Blanchard does not think overwhelming people with a cumulative case is honest work, or that there is a role to play in persuasion. That, quite frankly is utterly ignorant. Utterly ignorant."<br />Although Loftu doesn't give any reasons for why this is ignorant (other than the non-sequitur that there are more facts in his brain than he can put in a book), he evidently thinks that getting to a desired effect (deconversion) via something other than standard intellectual methods (charitable interpretation of opponents, giving voice to opponents, not skewing case, etc.) can be honest. This is very remarkable, and will be news to educators everywhere.<br /><br />"Now, how can I convince others of that? I'm trying to convince others of what I know. At that point there is nothing dishonest with what I'm doing even if you don't like it. If you don't like it don't continue helping me make my case."<br />A million dollars for anyone who can extract information from this statement. Loftus asks how he can convince others of "that" (presumably, that Christian belief has no more "epistemic warrant" than one of its denominations, Mormonism), then answers: trying to convince others of what he knows (which includes, among other things, the "that"). Then he says, in further destruction of language, that "at that point" there is nothing dishonest in what he is doing.<br /><br />This is quite remarkable. Loftus suggests bludgeoning methods to overwhelm people into believing something. Yet he himself criticizes religious belief on the grounds that it is motivated by "brainwashing," the term he has failed to define which presumably is a non truth-conducive method.Joshua Blanchardhttp://www.egalicontrarian.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-53508486741629300802010-09-22T06:53:12.051-07:002010-09-22T06:53:12.051-07:00BY: thanks for the congrats. It is amazing having ...BY: thanks for the congrats. It is amazing having her in our lives! She's a sweet baby.<br /><br />Yes, it hurts me to have to choose what to learn versus not learn in my life. But it absolutely must be done, there is no way to learn everything.Blue Devil Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12045468316613818510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-66654777210119797552010-09-22T06:50:00.933-07:002010-09-22T06:50:00.933-07:00@R O'Brien
Obviously Dave skipped the beginni...@R O'Brien<br /><br />Obviously Dave skipped the beginning of TLS where Dr. Feser PhD talks about the difference between Realism, Conceptualism and Nominalism. Then Feser goes on to argue for a moderate Realism. Naturally then Feser would look at both math & geometry threw the prism of moderate Realism.<br /><br />I can figure this out & I don't have a PhD.BenYachovhttp://www.catholic.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-91642808779117980802010-09-22T06:13:50.414-07:002010-09-22T06:13:50.414-07:00Dave Miller is no doubt one of those pathetic indi...Dave Miller is no doubt one of those pathetic individuals who introduces himself as Dave Miller, PhD or Dr. Dave Miller at parties. I am not impressed with his advanced degree in physics; I know many, many people at UCSD (and elsewhere) who are better than he could ever hope to be. Moreover, his self-promotion and arrogance is especially pathetic considering that he appears to be dried up as a physicist. Lastly, and most importantly, he is apparently unaware that most mathematicians are realists. If he confronted a mathematician with his foolish little empiricism re: Euclidean geometry he'd be squashed like a bug.R O'Briennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-1346479909466803912010-09-21T23:15:10.881-07:002010-09-21T23:15:10.881-07:00Seems like a fair critique. I suppose I could qui...Seems like a fair critique. I suppose I could quibble on a very minor point or two (or not) but I'm too tired & sleep beckons.<br /><br />Good job BDK. Oh, I have have been remiss, congratulations on your child as well.<br /><br />Cheers. <br /><br />PS<br />>(sorry, but ya' gotta pick what you will die ignorant of, and one of those things for me is Aristotelian metaphysics).<br /><br />Tragic! Since till now I don't know how I could have lived this long & believe in God without knowing Aristotelian metaphysics. But to each his own.<br /><br />Cheers again.BenYachovhttp://www.catholic.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-55703786164040193532010-09-21T20:35:53.763-07:002010-09-21T20:35:53.763-07:00And it is pretty clear, anyway, what he means by o...And it is pretty clear, anyway, what he means by one thing 'sustaining' another in an essentially ordered chain. If you take out the first, the whole chain collapses.<br /><br />I think instead of all these hedges and such about 'final' versus 'efficient' causality, Feser could have just said, in response to Dave's criticism:<br />"Sigh. Fine. My main point was that motorneuron activity sustains the hand movement, that if you take away the neurons, the muscles in the hand won't move any more. That is what is supporting the present movement of the hand. Yes, technically, motorneuron firing onset does not immediately cause muscle fibers to contract. There is a cascade of intervening steps between the two, so there will be a very short time between the two, and I might have spelled that out more explicitly. So yes, in that sense what is sustaining the present movement of the hand is technically motorneuron firing a millisecond or so ago (this is contra Eric's claim trying to justify the simultaneity defense by appeal to final effects). The final step in the cascade from neuron to contraction is the true "simultaneous" sustainer of my hand movement (e.g., tendons exerting a change in force being applied to my bones is simultaneous with my hand movement)."<br /><br />At any rate, to focus on such details in the rather coarse and impressionistic introduction to the idea of an essentially ordered series on p 92 is, in the final analysis, a mistake. An understandable mistake that Feser perhaps could have blocked by being just a tad more clear. But the criticism comes across as a kind of "gotcha" criticism that clearly doesn't damage Fesers overall stance in a substantive way, it is a detail he can trivially absorb into his Aristotelian apparatus.<br /><br />Note I'm not defending his Aristotelian apparatus! I don't understand it, haven't read it closely outside of the bits relevant to this discussion, and am frankly not interested in learning all that much about it (sorry, but ya' gotta pick what you will die ignorant of, and one of those things for me is Aristotelian metaphysics).Blue Devil Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12045468316613818510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-22259943241394807282010-09-21T17:49:19.497-07:002010-09-21T17:49:19.497-07:00Ben, I also think it's clear that Feser was ta...Ben, I also think it's clear that Feser was talking about an analysis of a causal series *from the last effect considered*, and not, as Dave erroneously concluded, *from the first cause of the series*. That is, Feser isn't saying that the first cause is simultaneous with the last effect, but that when analyzed from the point of view of the last effect, the last effect *depends* as that moment (i.e. simultaneously) on the first cause. So, while there may be a delay from the time my neurons fire to the time my hand moves a lever, and from the time the lever flexes and moves a stone, it's the case that as the stone is moving, the lever is moving, my hand is moving, and my neurons are firing. Hence, Dave's criticisms, though accurate statements of the science involved, falsely attribute an inaccurate scientific account on Feser's part.<br /><br />Here are some quotes from TLS (pages 92 - 95) to support my reading:<br /><br />"...if we think of a hand which is pushing a stone by means of a stick, *the motion of the stone* [the last effect being considered] occurs only insofar as the stick is moving it, and the stick is moving it only insofar as it is being used by the hand to do so. At every moment in which *the last part of the series* (viz. the motion of the stone) exists, the earlier parts (viz. the motion of the hand and of the stick) exist as well...The series is essentially ordered *because the later members of the series*, having no independent power of motion on their own, derive the fact of their motion and the ability to move other things *from the first member*, in this case the hand...[in an essentially ordered causal series] each member *depends simultaneously* on other members with *simultaneously depend* in turn on yet others, and so on...the hand's potentiality for motion is actualized by the arm, and the arm's potentiality for motion is actualized by the muscles, and the muscle's potentiality for motion is actualized by the nerves; and again, *all of this* is simultaneous [by "all of this" Feser indicates that he's talking about the series from the point of view of the last effect under consideration, as I have been arguing]...the motion of the stone depends on the motion of the stick, which depends on the motion of the hand, which depends on the firing of the neurons, which depends on the firing of other neurons, all of which depend on the state of the nervous system, which depends on its current molecular structure, which depends on the atomic basis of that molecular structure, which depends on electromagnetism, gravitation, the weak and strong force, and so on and so forth, **all** simultaneously, **all** here and now [again, notice the structure of the analysis: Feser moves from the last effect to the earliest causes, and not, as would be required on Dave's reading, from the first cause to the last effect. The next sentence makes this even clearer.]. The actualization of one potential depends on the simultaneous actualization of another, which depends on the simultaneous actualization of another, which depends on the simultaneous actualization of another, which depends on...How far can it go? [Here, when specifically referencing "simultaneous actualization," the "How far can it go?" at the end clearly indicates that he's asking how far *back to the first cause* can it go, which again supports my reading of his use of the term "simultaneous," not Dave's]"Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-70746831122199040452010-09-21T16:55:00.763-07:002010-09-21T16:55:00.763-07:00Well long as we all realize Feser is talking about...Well long as we all realize Feser is talking about Aristotle's metaphysical view of motion(i.e. being change, not spacial movement per say, potencies being actualized etc) & he is using the example of physical motion as analogous to Aristotlian motion. <br /><br />He is not intending to make an statement about the nature of physical motion. (one has only yo read pages 1 to 91 to get the context).<br /><br /> Anymore than if I say "the sun will rise tomorrow" I'm intending to repudiate heliocentric science or profess the fixed nature of the Earth.<br /><br />Dave can't get past the fact Feser isn't talking about physics.BenYachovhttp://www.catholic.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-32429129511083231532010-09-21T15:36:41.415-07:002010-09-21T15:36:41.415-07:00I've quoted in full the relevant bits of Feser...I've quoted in full the relevant bits of Feser's book, and Dave's criticism <a href="http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2010/09/feser-on-dretske.html#c6167060348454280895" rel="nofollow">here</a>. I will post on it later tonight, just there for people to consider.Blue Devil Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12045468316613818510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-63355523647952799142010-09-21T10:31:43.909-07:002010-09-21T10:31:43.909-07:00>Sounds like a consensus is emerging.
I reply:...>Sounds like a consensus is emerging.<br /><br />I reply: Well it's possible I might wind up <b>politely</b> disagreeing with BDK on how clear Feser is in this matter. Or not. But I have no reason to deny BDK's good faith here.<br /><br />That's all I require.BenYachovhttp://www.catholic.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-80007382814171402522010-09-21T10:06:31.552-07:002010-09-21T10:06:31.552-07:00Sounds like a consensus is emerging.Sounds like a consensus is emerging.Timhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09752886510692318211noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-64578678958087074342010-09-21T08:45:38.185-07:002010-09-21T08:45:38.185-07:00>he probably should have been more clear what h...>he probably should have been more clear what he was saying about motor neurons and such.<br /><br />I reply: As I said on the other thread that's a fair criticism & I'm the big Feser fan here.BenYachovhttp://www.catholic.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-39528551755032776712010-09-21T08:17:38.574-07:002010-09-21T08:17:38.574-07:00On the other hand, I just re-read what Feser wrote...On the other hand, I just re-read what Feser wrote, and can certainly understand the confusion.<br /><br />I can see misreading him, and he probably should have been more clear what he was saying about motor neurons and such.Blue Devil Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12045468316613818510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-58016267335839594082010-09-21T04:42:29.320-07:002010-09-21T04:42:29.320-07:00BDK, yes; in fact, I think it's a safe wager t...BDK, yes; in fact, I think it's a safe wager that Feser, not Dave, is the world's foremost expert on what Feser thinks!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-85290631959370710372010-09-20T21:38:39.246-07:002010-09-20T21:38:39.246-07:00It's pretty obvious he misread Feser. That'...It's pretty obvious he misread Feser. That's what Feser said, after all!Blue Devil Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12045468316613818510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-84942859597548946122010-09-20T09:29:04.798-07:002010-09-20T09:29:04.798-07:00I was hoping this thread would die because I can&#...I was hoping this thread would die because I can't bear to watch Dave meltdown anymore. But you sow the wind you reap the whirlwind. <br /><br />@Tim<br /><br />>Again, you object strenuously to my claim that you saddled BenYachov with a claim about physical geometry where he appears to me to have been talking about a claim in pure geometry.<br /><br />I reply: It's obvious to anyone who reads page 82 of Feser's book this is the case as well. Tim's quotes of Dave show his contradictory thinking. <br /><br />But of course Dave I think deep down knows this, but you know I think he believes if he admits he was wrong about Feser, that somehow that's the equivalent of admitting God exists. Sane Atheists like BDK seem to except the <b>possibility</b> Dave might have misread or misunderstood Feser with no problem to their unbelief. Guys like Loftus & Dave OTOT seem to act as if admitting an error is equivalence to admitting God.<br /><br />Christians do this too. It's a disturbing phenomena.BenYachovhttp://www.catholic.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-26828466313829981512010-09-20T09:22:36.932-07:002010-09-20T09:22:36.932-07:00I Googled "John Loftus christianity dangerous...I Googled "John Loftus christianity dangerous" looking for a quote and came across this site. So far I used up 2 hours reading the posts about John.<br /><br />As a high school science teacher I would like to ask PhysicistDave a question. I only perused about half the comments so far. Sorry if this was covered already!<br /><br />My brighter students want to do real science at prestigious schools like Stanford. Are your posts here a good example of how physicists at Stanford think? Is this how you and your colleagues do physics? Do you just do research, or do you teach classes at Stanford? If you teach at Stanford, is this how you teach students to do science? Appreciate your insights!<br /><br />++TerryTerry Schleichernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-87848369282525670542010-09-20T07:53:42.389-07:002010-09-20T07:53:42.389-07:00"And, again, thank you oodles and oodles for ..."And, again, thank you oodles and oodles for proving my point that we scientists have a different mode of mental functioning than you do." <br /><br />"I’m arguing my case strongly here because I think it is largely true and because I am trying to elicit counter-evidence from guys like Tim. However, I actually do leave open the possibility that someone like Tim will prove me wrong, though I doubt it, or at least point out some area where the approach of philosophers is really fruitful. I also doubt that, but the universe is a big place. Could happen."<br /><br />"Oh, BY, you are priceless. You are truly, indeed, what modern Christianity is all about. Do you mind if I quote you elsewhere (book, article, whatever)? The level of ignorance combined with arrogance that you exhibit is truly wonderful."<br /><br />"What happens though if some Christian actually goes to a university library and finds out that I am right? Makes Christianity look kinda bad, doesn't it?"<br /><br />"I once tried to slip a bit of philosopher-style “arguing” into a paper when I was doing my thesis work. My advisor nixed it, not because he claimed it was wrong but because he indicated it was a faux pas: well-bred physicists just do not soil themselves as philosophers do, he implied."<br /><br />"Again, this is the incommensurability I am arguing for: almost all “arguments” by philosophers that I have seen strike me not just as wrong but as pathetic nonsense. Conversely, I expect that when an intelligent person learns the truth about science, about Biblical scholarship, etc. he will automatically abandon Christianity without “argument”: if he does not, I draw obvious conclusions about his intelligence or honesty."<br /><br />"Or, as my own mentor, Dick Feynman, put it, science is our way of trying not to fool ourselves. Of course, a lot of people dislike science and love philosophy or theology for precisely that reason: they desperately want to fool themselves."<br /><br />"To anyone who wonders why I keep referring to science alone and not, say, history, the answer is that for a century or more there have been historians who have seriously and successfully used a scientific method in history. It is now the norm for many (not all) historians. The same is true for many (certainly not all!) Biblical scholars. I am not privileging the *subject* of science but rather the method of science, in the broad sense, which can be, and now has been, successfully used in various other disciplines (alas not all!) besides the natural sciences. I simply want to make that trend universal. Tim and most philosophers oppose me on that."<br /><br />"As I kept saying to BY, this is classic math, well-established for nearly two hundred years. Its relevance for both logic and philosophy is of course obvious (e.g., to Kant’s claim that the axioms of Euclidean geometry are known a priori), and, of course, no one can be literate in either logic or philosophy who does not know this. (Yes, I know many philosophers do *not* know this.)"<br /><br />"the point John and I keep trying to make is that this was done two centuries ago. We do not need to reinvent the wheel: intellectually, Christianity is dead. The body just still twitches occasionally."<br /><br />"we are not going to be diverted by your pretense that there is actually some legitimate intellectual defense of Christianity that we should take seriously."<br /><br />"The Kingdom of God is dead. The Great Satan AKA Christianity is a stinking pile of decay."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-60670309094992337472010-09-20T07:53:17.558-07:002010-09-20T07:53:17.558-07:00"I do not respect how you and most of your fe..."I do not respect how you and most of your fellow philosophers think. I think that we have tested your manner of “thinking” and “reasoning” empirically over thousands of years and found that it is a failure. For example, to use your words, the idea of “arguments” being “impressive” leaves me quite cold, I fear. That is not how good scientists (or mathematicians, a very different breed from natural scientists, of course) think."<br /><br />"I think that the method of thinking in science is contrary to and adversarial to the method of thinking employed in philosophy, theology, psychotherapy, hermeneutics, etc. I think science should and will replace such pseudo-disciplines, and I think that it is a good thing that those disciplines are dying."<br /><br />"Fogelin is one of those rare philosophers whose mode of thought is more similar to scientists than to most of his fellow philosophers, which is why I respect him." <br /><br />"I really do think we have an actual empirical case of “polylogism,” between guys like you and guys like me, Loftus, and Fogelin: incommensurable, mutually incompatible modes of mental operation. I think that empirical tests show that your mode of functioning is ineffective and that ours is effective."<br /><br />"I am also pretty sure that I can never convince you of this, since your mode of thought is self-confirming.<br />"Incidentally, our mode of thought is *not* self-confirming: it might have been the case that empirical tests would show that our quasi-empiricist mode of thought fails compared to your mode of thought. But, they have not."<br /><br />"But, again, the fact that, as you claim, *philosophers* think they have ruled out the possibility of time travel without doing all the necessary work in physics (I trust no philosopher claims to have completed the Hawking calculation!) just proves to me once again that philosophers are not mentally competent at a very fundamental level."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-2909972603254845842010-09-20T07:52:01.804-07:002010-09-20T07:52:01.804-07:00"I've tried several times (starting last ..."I've tried several times (starting last night) to post a comment explaining why scientifically oriented people cannot take modern apologetics seriously."<br /><br />"When scientifically literate people such as myself look at modern Christian apologetics, we see simply embarrassing nonsense"<br /><br />"with all due respect, I do not have much respect for the community of philosophers"<br /><br />"My general view is that philosophers and natural scientists have mutually exclusive functioning epistemologies, that we have run a very nice empirical test in comparing these competing epistemologies during the last few centuries, and that the philosopher’s mode of thought is now dead." <br /><br />"I just think the whole philosophical approach has been discredited by experience."<br /><br />"Surely, two millennia during which they could produce nothing that even their colleagues could generally agree was correct is failure enough." <br /><br />"I’ll say that this is generally what I expect from philosophers – their knowledge of actual facts about reality, as opposed to verbal philosophical fantasies, tends to be close to non-existent." <br /><br />"Sometimes, all one can say is, “In the name of Darwin, Hume, and all else that is holy. Get off you fat duff and learn something about reality instead of this cow manure about Christ and metaphysics.”"Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-38753278173246317772010-09-20T07:50:49.412-07:002010-09-20T07:50:49.412-07:00Dave, let me try to formalize the argument you'...Dave, let me try to formalize the argument you've been making in this thread:<br /><br />(1) I, Dave, am a trained scientist (Ph.D. in physics), while most of you, and most of the people you reference, are philosophers.<br /><br />(2) Scientists and philosophers approach questions about the truth of a claim about the real world differently (i.e. use different methods).<br /><br />(3) The scientific approach is more effective than the philosophical approach when our aim is to determine whether a claim about the real world is true.<br /><br />(4) Christianity rests on claims about the real world.<br /><br />(5) Therefore, a scientific approach to determining the truth of Christianity's real world claims is more effective than a philosophical approach.<br /><br />(6) I, Dave, am approaching the question of the truth of Christianity's real world claims scientifically while those who oppose me on this thread are approaching it philosophically.<br /><br />(7) Therefore, my conclusions about Christianity's real world claims are more likely to be true than those reached by a philosopher.<br /><br />(8) I, Dave, have concluded that Christianity's real world claims are false, while the philosophers on this thread, and the philosophers they reference, have concluded that Christianity's real world claims are true.<br /><br />(9) Therefore, Christianity's real world claims are more likely false than true.<br /><br />Now I've formulated these premises very charitably (Dave's claims are actually much stronger), and below I'll provide a series of quotes from Dave's numerous posts to demonstrate that this really is the argument he's making (though he'd repudiate my categorizing it as an argument; whatever).<br /><br />But before we get to the quotes, let's take a quick look at the argument.<br /><br />Let's suppose that Dave really has a Ph.D. in physics, and that (1) is true. Let's also brush aside any technical problems with (2) and suppose that it's true.<br /><br />We run into our first problem with (3), for it supposes that philosophers and scientists are applying different methods to the same kinds of questions. In most cases, this is obviously false.<br /><br />Let's grant that (4) is true if we don't limit, a priori, what the real world comprises to the world as naturalists conceive it.<br /><br />I think (5) is problematic because of the problem I raised about (3), viz. it's not the case that all the questions about the truth of Christianity are scientific questions. For an couple of obvious examples, the questions of whether god's attributes are logically consistent isn't a scientific question, and neither are the questions raised by the various forms of the problem of evil.<br /><br />The problem with (6) is that Dave hasn't actually presented any scientific arguments that purport to show that Christianity is false. Rather, he's asserted that it's false a number of times, and has instead focused on *examples* (not evidence used to justify a claim, but examples used to illustrate a claim) of natural phenomena and mathematical reasoning that a particular Christian philosopher has used to illustrate a particular conception of one kind of causal series and a way of thinking about how metaphysics differs from empirical science. And, as I pointed out earlier, he badly misunderstood the causation example, and as Tim has now pointed out with the distinction between pure geometry and physical geometry, he mangled the mathematics/metaphysics example.<br /><br />Finally, the problem with (7), (8) and (9) is that Dave hasn't actually done any of the work necessary to establish that conclusion. It's this obvious lack of work, and the quotes below, that have led me to conclude that the argument I've formalized above is in fact his argument; needless to say, it sucks. Now for the quotes, lest Dave should attempt to say I've misrepresented him (and, as the quotes will show, I've been exceedingly charitable to him):Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-64673355385334182712010-09-20T06:59:15.321-07:002010-09-20T06:59:15.321-07:00Dave,
Again, you object strenuously to my claim t...Dave,<br /><br />Again, you object strenuously to my claim that you saddled BenYachov with a claim about physical geometry where he appears to me to have been talking about a claim in pure geometry. I do see two comments of yours that have direct bearing on this. One of them runs:<br /><br /><i>[T]he fact is that the truth of the axioms of geometry is an empirical issue, and they happen to be untrue</i><br /><br />That does seem to be a rather straightforward assimilation of geometry to physical geometry. The comment makes no sense as a statement about pure geometry.<br /><br />The other runs:<br /><br /><i>[W]e know that the premises of Euclidean geometry are not true of the real world</i><br /><br />This is a commonplace in physics, and there is a sense in which it is perfectly true. But it requires, once again, that we treat geometry physically, and in particular that we interpret "line" as the path taken by a ray of light traveling in a vacuum. This is a contingent identification that goes beyond pure geometry.Timhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09752886510692318211noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-73462018545985169952010-09-20T06:58:34.303-07:002010-09-20T06:58:34.303-07:00Dave writes:
Tim, you’re a liar.
I very clearly ...Dave writes:<br /><br /><i>Tim, you’re a liar.<br /><br />I very clearly covered both issues.<br /><br />Liar.</i><br /><br />It's a very long thread -- 167 comments as I sit down to write this morning -- so it's certainly possible that I missed it. Where did you discuss "the straightforward sense in which most people imagine" time travel? What I had in mind, as I would gladly have told you if you had had the courtesy to ask, was a "Back to the Future" conception of time travel. If you'll point me to a specific passage in one of your comments where you address this qualification, I'll gladly retract my claim.Timhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09752886510692318211noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-45553139247524588932010-09-20T06:50:28.061-07:002010-09-20T06:50:28.061-07:00BDK,
I made no claim about what philosophers have...BDK,<br /><br />I made no claim about what philosophers have "shown": I merely reported what I perceive to be a consensus of those who work in the area regarding "Back to the Future" style time travel.Timhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09752886510692318211noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-39313627066410720542010-09-20T06:19:26.465-07:002010-09-20T06:19:26.465-07:00Tim: mainly I'm surprised you would say it was...Tim: mainly I'm surprised you would say it was philosophers that showed it (given that it is clearly a physics question).Blue Devil Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12045468316613818510noreply@blogger.com