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Post by rocketdad on Sept 29, 2005 12:57:12 GMT -4
My bad. I google focker, that's a biplane, a ben stiller char in a movie i haven't seen, and an odd surname.
What are you saying?
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Post by Dead Hoosiers on Sept 29, 2005 15:37:23 GMT -4
Why did you think he's Mormon? Because he's in Utah? How very open minded of you. I would also assert, though, that you and my Granny don't read the same book, either. She's after messages of hope and redemption, not fear and anxiety. . . . are all Fnords. If you know what that means, comment. If not, you should find out. I'm trying to figure out what's driving this need for fear and anxiety. . . Here are the false assumptions you made. Don't ask me to point out stuff like this again. It makes me tired. You knew what they were when you asked me to tell you. I knew what a Fnord is and the sense in which you were using the word. But you assumed I didn't -- that's why you wanted me to tell you. My response was humorous, but you either didn't get it or couldn't pass up an opportunity to lecture. Focker. The Ben Stiller character. It means stupid. Now look up poseur.
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Post by rocketdad on Sept 29, 2005 16:27:14 GMT -4
DH: are you interested in discussing this topic or not?
From "urban dictionary" 1. poseur
Main Entry: po·seur Pronunciation: pO-'z&r Function: noun Etymology: French Date: 1872 : a person who pretends to be what he or she is not : an affected or insincere person
I'm confused. Are you saying I am pretending something? Or are you "whistle-blowing" that you're pretending something?
I didn't "get" your response to Fnord. I'm just a putzy old dad, a child of hippies, now living in a little hick town. I don't know what you do or don't know. I have a master's degree worth of credits, but they're in three different fields. I've read a lot of different things. I hardly even know what I know. Sorry I don't know that "the ben stiller character" means stupid. We don't use that term over here.
Let's try this again, shall we? I'm trying to discuss the philosophy of belief. I'm not really a philosopher, so sometimes maybe I'll do it the wrong way, but I'm just trying to get past our assumptions. Sometimes I may try to confront assumptions head-on, and I know that's not academic, but it seems easier at the time.
So a) why did you assume JayUtah is Mormon?
b) by "same book" I'm speaking conceptually. I've read the Bible (several versions), the Book of Mormon, and many other books besides. I'm talking about what you and my Granny get out of the "same" book.
c) in mentioning Fnords and Discordia I'm trying to open the topic of skepticism and disinformation.
On the other hand, if you just want to trade abuse we can start a new thread for that.
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Post by nomuse on Sept 29, 2005 17:17:01 GMT -4
(Best Eric Idle voice) "But I came here for an argument!"
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Post by Dead Hoosiers on Sept 29, 2005 17:49:39 GMT -4
DH: are you interested in discussing this topic or not? Not really. I just stopped in to give you the Hume reference and got sucked in.
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Sept 29, 2005 17:50:51 GMT -4
"Just the five minutes' or the full half-hour?"
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Post by rocketdad on Sept 29, 2005 19:46:35 GMT -4
How much for six hours with Margamatic?
Ow, ow, I can't take any more. Can I get a refund for something free? Maybe I want my afternoon back....
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Post by Dead Hoosiers on Sept 29, 2005 20:25:36 GMT -4
Quit your whining rocketdad. You have no one to blame but yourself. You're eager to insult people and make yourself out to be an intellectual, but you never seem to get down to brass tacks and say anything of substance--you just ask questions, no doubt hoping your victim won't know the answers because you don't know the answers yourself. And you're a brown-noser. I really dislike that.
Grow some cajones and say what YOU believe. Then sit back while the kind and gentle people here rip you a new one.
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Post by rocketdad on Sept 29, 2005 21:46:36 GMT -4
Why do you think I believe something bizzare?
I believe my on-line time is addictive behaviour. I believe I need to clean my bookmarks, and stay away. I believe I have better things to do with my time.
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Post by PeterB on Sept 29, 2005 21:48:32 GMT -4
A few years ago I helped to put together an entry book for Cancon, the largest wargaming and roleplaying convention in Australia. Despite our best efforts, we had about a quarter of a page spare in the roleplaying section of the entry book. In a fit of whimsy, we labelled the section <fnord>, as though it was the title of another roleplaying game, and filled the remainder of the space with normal-sized <fnord>s. And just to add to the surreality, about 2/3 of the way along a line about 2/3 of the way down, we replaced one <fnord> with the word Holden (in Australia, Holden is the brand name associated with General Motors cars. But the bizarre part of it was that, although there was nothing related to it on the entry form, and no contact details for people to get information, some people *still* wanted to enter this roleplaying game… And for those in Australia or NZ, feel free to come to next year's Cancon, by looking at www.cgs.asn.au.
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Post by Joe Durnavich on Oct 1, 2005 0:13:30 GMT -4
what is it to believe vs. know?
Be careful that you don't treat terms like "believe" and "know" as if they apply to distinct phenomena like the physics terms "electromagnetism" and "gravity" do. People use the terms "believe" and "know" in a variety of ways in a variety of situations in order to talk about the variety of things people do. There is no single demarcation in nature whereby any given statement crosses the line from being a belief to being knowledge, or whereby people change from being in a state of believing to a state of knowing. That doesn't mean the terms are meaningless; we just don't use those terms in that way.
Second, I would like to point out that as correspondents on electronic media we are all potontially "bots." Can any one of you prove you are not a chatterbot?
There is no default that holds in absence of evidence such as "we are all potentially bots" or Al's "everything could be an illusion". Those are claims to knowledge that have to be established like any claim by marshaling evidence from the world and forming valid lines of reasoning from it. To make those claims, in other words, is to say, in effect, "I know such-and-such about the world." The purpose of such claims, however, is to deny such knowledge is possible.
I can prove for myself what the American Plywood Association stamp on the sheet tells me, or I can save time and believe the APA.
Philosophy can make the issue of "knowledge" a confusing muddle because it asks ill-posed questions such as "What is knowledge?". As your nice example shows, we can remain clear on the matter by focusing on the practical, by looking at what people do to be successful in life. From this viewpoint, we consider knowledge as a skill or technique, an aspect of what people do to advance their lives. To be successful, we must use resources economically, including the scarce resource of time. In your case, because you economized time by relying on the APA labels on the plywood, you were able to build a functional shed. We could say you were more knowledgable, more skillful, than a person who never completed his shed because he misspent his time and money testing every type of lumber and every type of nail.
Pay attention to how engineers describe their work. The process of developing a product involves making all sorts of compromises and cutting corners. If they didn't the product would never be produced because it would be over budget and/or over time. We don't say the engineer is not knowledgeable because he cannot prove to a certainty that his product will never fail. He is knowledgable precisely because of his skill in working within constraints, of making the best compromises, so that as many people as possible benefit from his product at a practical cost.
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golfhobo
Venus
DAMN! That woulda gone in the hole IF....
Posts: 86
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Post by golfhobo on Oct 2, 2005 12:41:37 GMT -4
Yes, it's history that's important: establishing a reputation. If a source has proved to be accurate in the past, there is more justification for believing it next time and vice versa. I can't recall the exact details, but applying probability theory there is a regime whereby a number of consecutive successful tests establishes reliability: any failure increases the number of successes required. Does this boil down to "Fool me once... shame on you....Fool me twice..... shame on me?"
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Oct 2, 2005 14:14:16 GMT -4
Yes, it's history that's important: establishing a reputation. If a source has proved to be accurate in the past, there is more justification for believing it next time and vice versa. I can't recall the exact details, but applying probability theory there is a regime whereby a number of consecutive successful tests establishes reliability: any failure increases the number of successes required. Does this boil down to "Fool me once... shame on you....Fool me twice..... shame on me?"With extra maths symbols and a couple of graphs...
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golfhobo
Venus
DAMN! That woulda gone in the hole IF....
Posts: 86
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Post by golfhobo on Oct 2, 2005 15:06:13 GMT -4
That's why you engineer types get the REAL money! ;D
Being a barstool philosopher doesn't pay much!
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