Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.
I’ve opened a new “Sandbox” thread as a post as the new “ignore commenter” plug-in only works on threads started as posts.
Bible included?
By definition. “usually; generally. as regards the greater part or number.“
My car is mostly reliable about starting but every once in a long while it won’t start. It is just a little unreliable at times.
from the paper
quote:
Accordingly, we define as observer any physical system that can extract information from another system by means of some interaction, and store that information in a physical memory. Such an observer can establish “facts”, to which we assign the value recorded in their memory. Notably, the formalism of quantum mechanics does not make a distinction between large (even conscious) and small physical system, which is sometimes referred to as universality. Hence, our definition covers human observers, as well as more commonly used nonconscious observers such as (classical or quantum) computers and other measurement devices—even the simplest possible ones, as long as they satisfy the above requirements
end quote:
Interesting, so a BB could in fact be an observer in this scenario?
Peace
Right so I can’t say for sure it started on Monday.
Therfore I have no reason absent other information to claim your car started on Monday. I can say it starts most days but I can’t say it started on any particular day.
Newton: I know my car started on Monday
FMM: How do you know that?
Newton: Well, it starts most days and only fails to start once and awhile
FMM: I don’t think you understand how this works 😉
peace
If you view the Bible as merely literature you are missing the point.
peace
If you view it as not literature, so do you.
I don’t like the “so” there, which suggests you’re both reading it wrong. You should have said,
If you view it as not literature, you do.
If it is Tuesday and it started yesterday, I can say it started on Monday.
I can’t say it will start on next Monday.
No matter if my car is mostly reliable or always reliable, things break. There is no guarantees what happened in the past will happen in the future. One can extrapolate and predict. A car that didn’t start yesterday or the day before is less likely from experience to start than one that started yesterday and the day before.
The lattter has gone to mostly unreliable.
Newton : my car started, it was Monday.
Newton: Well enough to understand there are different levels of uncertainty, sweetness, cold ,reliability, knowledge, lack of knowledge, unreliability of a vehicle.
I would certainly agree with that. That is why you are (at times) my favorite.
The Bible is literature of course but it is much more. If you are interested in the Bible as literature. I would suggest.
peace
The point is you can’t say it started Monday because it’s mostly reliable. You need other reasons
Notice that the fact that you car is mostly reliable is totally irrelevant to that claim.
I don’t disagree with any of this.
Of course none of it was ever at issue in the first place.
What was at issue is your justification for knowledge and mostly reliable senses can’t get you there.
peace
fifth:
newton:
walto:
I think “so are you” would be a better phrasing, given the context:
fifth: If you view the Bible as merely literature you are missing the point.
newton: If you view it as not literature, so are you.
In any case, it’s amusing that fifth says:
Exascerbating place.
Take no notice of the pedants! 🙂 It’s perfectly clear what you meant. The “so do you…” assume the unnecessary “…miss the point”. Sure FFM used the continuous “are missing” but for FS; 🙂
ETA clear
Alan, to walto:
Not to fifth. Otherwise he wouldn’t have agreed with it.
keiths, It’s possible he was persuaded by Newton’s argument!
That would be the first time anyone has. I am on a roll
newton,
🙂
Upon re-reading the entire exchange, I think that fifth actually was technically agreeing with newton’s statement, as reworded by walto. My mistake.
But newton’s actual point seems to have been that fifth’s earlier statement could be seen as excluding the Bible from the ‘literature’ category
…which prompted newton to ask:
Fifth should have just said “no”, but instead he wrote this:
That was a non-sequitur, because newton’s question did not imply that the Bible was “merely literature”.
fifth, yesterday:
keiths:
fifth:
fifth, today:
Of course I did not say he implied that the Bible was merely literature.
I said that if he thought that he would be missing the point.
The whole exercise was just a little dance.
We went from talking about scientific literature to talking about ancient literature to talking about reading comprehension then finally to talking about pedantics.
This sort of thing is just what passes for entertainment here 😉
That is why it’s called the sandbox
peace
fifth:
Which was a non-sequitur. Better to answer the question he had asked you.
keiths,
I’m not sure what your point is? Just to be clear.
If your senses and reason were 100% reliable then you could justify your claim to know your car started on Monday by appealing to your senses and reason.
Since your senses and reason are not 100% reliable you need another reason to justify your claim to know your car started on Monday.
Get it?
peace
fifth:
Here’s the point: Yesterday you were treating ‘mostly reliable’ as if it were an oxymoron…
…and after I explained why it isn’t an oxymoron, you continued to treat it as if it were:
But today you (perhaps inadvertently) showed that it isn’t an oxymoron, by using it in a sentence:
There is nothing oxymoronic or nonsensical about describing a car as ‘mostly reliable’.
To borrow your phrase: Get it??
I’m sorry but that is not what I intended to convey.
Mostly reliable is not an oxymoron, It’s just not the same thing as reliable and should not be treated as such.
Just as sorta pregnant is not an oxymoron it’s just not the same thing as not pregnant
peace
Thing
Would that mean reading the Bible as other than merely literature would be reading it wrong?
Would that mean reading the Bible as other than merely literature would be reading it wrong?
Apologies, it won’t let me edit
Is “at times” less or more often than “mostly”?
The Bible is literature of course but it is much more. If you are interested in the Bible as literature. I would suggest.
“I’m not too interested in the “literature”. I’m interested in what people actually believe” , includes the Bible in the literary category, that was my question.
peace
Come on, fifth. It’s obvious that you were trying to mock ‘mostly reliable’ as if ‘reliable’ were an all-or-nothing thing, and as if ‘mostly reliable’ were analogous to ‘mostly pregnant’ or ‘sort of pregnant’.
Neil:
fifth:
keiths:
fifth:
I mostly agree.
Glad to help.
I need some help parsing that one.
Are you saying that some people believe the Bible is not literature? Or are you saying that some people believe the Bible is a literary category? Or are you saying that you believe the Bible is one of the people who are actually literary categories? Or are you saying the literary category that is the Bible also includes people who believe the Bible is a literary category?
😉
And what exactly does any of this have to do with the empiricist philosophical literature that you so wanted to be on record as very much disagreeing with?
peace
I mostly agree as well.
Saying I mostly agree with you is like saying I mostly spell things correctly.
See I can mock things with out implying that they are oxymoronic.
😉
peace
I’m really interested in this now. I think you might have hit on something here.
So apparently we now know that there is no objective reality if we understand observers in the way a physicalist would.
It seems like we have the makings for another “Cognitive instability” argument AKA Carroll this time against physicalism itself.
I need to think about it.
peace
fifth,
Another usage heads-up: “AKA” stands for “also known as” and makes no sense in your sentence.
This is what you’re looking for:
Regarding 49 people being shot to death in New Zealand (New Zealand of all places “Britain on a Sunday afternoon”) can there be any doubt that unfettered free speech does not extend to racism and gun control is not infringement of personal liberty?
Just to clarify , Neil was talking about the literature concerning Empiricist viewpoint and last I checked lot of philosophy in the Bible. They seemed comparable in that aspect as literature.
I would think your ratio of correct to incorrect spelling would be much higher than agreeing to disagreeing, but I get the point.
Never doubted you could. You are a dual threat.
peace
And hatred of religion is not a good thing?
Of no interest , what “literature” entailed was. I can see the possible confusion, “literature” may not be a literary category.
Swamidass has asked that we post something about an upcoming debate.
Here’s the link to the PS announcement. It’s a debate between McClatchie (an ID proponent) and Swamidass (an evolutionist), this afternoon 3pm Eastern time, March 16.
swamidass is a member here, J-Mac.
The 737’s have computerized flight control compensation based on sensors? You mean if a sensor is faulty, we have gargbage going into the flight control computer — garbage in, garbage out — THEN CRASH!!! CRAP! Freaking risky engineering.
That mindset ok for a fighter plane like an F-16 since the prioty is to kill more of the enemy than possibly kill your own pilots because of a faulty sensor. Not passenger planes.
Regarding the 737, found out an Airbus crashed because an Angle-of-Attack sensor went screwy and the airplane went right into the ocean. Mercifully it the only casualties were the aircrew on a training/test flight, it was a full passenger load.
When I heard about all this fly by wire stuff going into the airlines, I thought to myself, “this is asking for trouble.”
Sal,
Every autopilot and flight control computer relies on sensors. That, by itself, isn’t a design flaw at all.
The 737 Max may have design flaws, but the decision to use sensors isn’t one of them.
One way to punish someone is to make them moderator of TSZ and then let them deal with a steady stream of complaints!
Alan lobbied for Mung to become a mod. Hmm…
Alan you Fox.
Yes.
I contacted the first author of the paper and apparently your reading does not align with the authors intended message conveyed in the paper.
I appears that Neil had it nailed at the outset that it was all a thought experiment albeit with a few new embellishments.
Mung had been volunteering for a longtime.
Sal,
Are you kidding? Alan loves being a moderator and the opportunities for abuse it affords him.
Remember, he’s the one who forced himself back on us after resigning.
Sal,
You forgot the very important step of reducing the power to idle.
PeterP:
No, they actually ran the experiment. This is stated both by the articles and by the arXiv paper itself.