On Government

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
281

[quote]squating_bear wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
I believe in the phenomena of people claiming to be wronged too. I even believe in natural rights. What I don’t believe is that the existence of natural rights can be proved.
[/quote]
Nothing can be proved

You accept a piece of evidence, or not[/quote]

Well then start there. What evidence are you talking about?

There have now come and gone multiple opportunities for you to state your evidence. Instead, and as seems to be your wont, you’re mentioning its existence. Nobody wants to dance with you.

Or am I to take it that your evidence begins and ends with, “people don’t want bad things to happen to them and their families”? Is that all?

282

[quote]kamui wrote:
That’s pretty close :

Si les droits n’existaient pas, il faudrait les inventer.[/quote]

Thanks! I knew I would screw up the tense.

[quote]
But indeed, the fact is that we can’t invent them arbitrarily.[/quote]

If they are invented, why can’t we invent them arbitrarily? Does this refer to the internal logic of the invented system (one man’s rights not negating the same rights of another man)?

283

Among other things, yes.

You don’t need to have a perfect, absolute and transcendant knowledge of metaphysics to deduce the concept of equality of right.
You only need a dictionary and a bit of logic.

Without equality, a right is not a right, it’s, by definition, a privilege.

Another example :
we could try very hard to invent something like “civil rights for rocks and inorganic things”.
But we would fail, because the very notion is inconsistent.
Why ? because, by definition, only a being can have rights. A mere thing has none.

The game of “creating rights” has rules and meta-rules. And there is a limited number of ways for a civil society to be a civil society.

Aknowledging this (while disregarding absurd demands of metaphysical proofs and faith-based pretenses) would be a good start to build a working consensus on these matters.

284

[quote]kamui wrote:

Among other things, yes.

You don’t need to have a perfect, absolute and transcendant knowledge of metaphysics to deduce the concept of equality of right.
You only need a dictionary and a bit of logic.

Without equality, a right is not a right, it’s, by definition, a privilege.

[/quote]

That depends on how you define rights.

For example, Wesley Hohfeld described four categories of rights:

  1. Privilege - to do something if and only if you have no duty not to do that thing. For example, you have a right to leave your workplace if and only if your employment contract allows you to do so.

  2. Claim - you have a right to claim something from someone if and only if that person owes a duty to you to do that thing. For example, you have a right to claim payment from your employer for your labour as per the conditions of your employment contract.

  3. Power - you have a right in the form of a power if and only if you have the ability according to a set of rules to alter your own rights or the rights of another. For example, you have the right to tell your employee what to do if and only if the employment contract grants you that power.

  4. Immunity - you have a right in the form of an immunity if and only if another person lacks the ability according to a set of rules to alter your rights. For example, you have the right not to vote in an election if and only if the law lacks the ability to compel you to do so.

285

[quote]kamui wrote:
disregarding absurd demands of metaphysical proofs and faith-based pretenses

[/quote]

I believe this refers to me, at least the first half.

My response is that I don’t think this is remotely close to absurd:

[quote]
Jack: This thing we can’t see/hear/smell/touch/taste exists.

Jill: How do you know?[/quote]

In fact, I think absurdity is to be found wherever someone doesn’t respond as our wise Jill did.

286

And even greater absurdity presents itself when old Jack finds some baffling way to stretch the conversation over days without even attempting to answer Jill’s simple, natural, four-word question. Or, perhaps even more bafflingly, when Jack answers a different question entirely–one not ever asked.

287

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]squating_bear wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
I believe in the phenomena of people claiming to be wronged too. I even believe in natural rights. What I don’t believe is that the existence of natural rights can be proved.
[/quote]
Nothing can be proved

You accept a piece of evidence, or not[/quote]

Well then start there. What evidence are you talking about?

There have now come and gone multiple opportunities for you to state your evidence. Instead, and as seems to be your wont, you’re mentioning its existence. Nobody wants to dance with you.

Or am I to take it that your evidence begins and ends with, “people don’t want bad things to happen to them and their families”? Is that all?[/quote]
You want evidence of rights

I said rights are indicative of wrongs. If the existence of one can be shown, this shows the other

[b]Now [/b]for the evidence of wrongs

We’ve all experienced it. You’ve seen light, you’ve heard sound, and you’ve felt the feel of being wronged

What would have been said of someone denying light before the discovery of photons? Awww…fuuuck… No, you’d say open your eyes!!!

This is a natural part of the human experience, not taught. And that could be argued

Three potential arguments I see

  1. Wrongs and rights are not indicative of each other
  2. This is nowhere near a quantum level description.
  3. You could argue that this is taught

On point 3 I want to say this:

Guilt may be taught, but it’s largely taught like this "How would YOU feel if somebody blah blah. To have felt wronged is innate - this is not taught

We could not even really comprehend light or sound without having experienced these. Scientifically speaking there are many aspects of light and sound, I could say light and sound are not actual physical things but a word we use to describe a physical grouping of things which we can experience. So this “evidence” only barely scratches the surface, but that’s all that was asked. The innate human ability to experience a feeling of having been wronged is evidence of the existence of actual right and wrong

288

[quote]squating_bear wrote:

  1. Wrongs and rights are not indicative of each other
    [/quote]

This.

“I don’t want X to happen to me” does not logically entail that “There exists, and I have, a natural right not to be X’ed.” (Unless those two sentences are synonymous, in which case I have a natural right not to be asked if I want to see people’s vacation photos.)

I’m not saying I know such a thing as a natural right doesn’t exist. I’m saying that if you do know it does, you are having a hell of a time explaining how you know this, or why you have the slightest reason to believe it.

289

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
Well then I would still have to resort to saying that the mechanism by which something is obtained does not preclude the object.
[/quote]

Right, I understand the claim. Mathematics exist and do not supervene on the physical. The rest of your post is a series of re-statements of this claim.

What is missing is evidence. On what evidence do you affirm that mathematics exist–actually exist–as a set platonic, non-physical ideals? On what evidence do you claim to know that it is not the case that mathematics supervene on the physical “material”–I use the term widely here–of the brain and its physical perception of the physical world it inhabits?

Note that analogy will not substantiate your claims. You drew an analogy involving continents. But it does not logically follow from “human conception of continents <---- physical continents, which exist outside the mind” that “human conception of mathematics <---- *non-physical mathematics, which exist outside the mind.” There is no necessary logical entailment in the analogy (as there just about never is: Analogy makes for poor philosophy).

*Note that the analogy doesn’t even work internally, because continents are physical entities whereas mathematics, in your view, are not.

Edited[/quote]

Well Kant posed this same problem the unlovable son of a bitch he was, he did have good points.
But first, I would highly contend that analogy makes poor philosophy. I have read my share of philosophy books and treatises and whatever other agonizing thing a dead guy can write. I cannot honestly think of one at the moment that did not use analogies. Maybe Aristotle? Jesus used them exclusively to make points.
Analogies not only make great philosophy, they make the subject matter tolerable. I may have made a bad analogy, but it doesn’t make all analogies bad.
Anyhow, the problem with the metaphysical is that no matter how we try, we have no choice but to interact by means of the physical.
There are many ways I think to attack it.
The many worlds hypothesis is one. The idea that a proposition would be true whether or not there where any human minds to to know it. In a possible world with no physical beings with minds exist, would a proposition still be true? Do the objects of the proposition still exist?
So with math, what are numbers? What are functions? ← not rhetorical.

Another approach is to take a look at the physical itself. In as much as Kant was right, so was Berkeley who proposed nothing physical exists, they are all objects of a mind. Berkeley has a university named after him, if Kant does I don’t know it. So who was right?
In as much as we cannot extrude our physicality from the examination of metaphysical objects as Kant says. We cannot prove the physical actually exists as Berkeley says.

As for the analogy, the point was objects exist whether we know it or not. One may not know anything about continents and indeed there was a time where that was true, yet they exist. Math also exists whether we know it or not. If nobody knew it, would it still exist? I believe the answer has to be yes. After all math wasn’t made, it was discovered. Nobody is credited with creating math, people are credited with discovering it. I don’t think it a matter of semantics.
[/quote]

Jesus wasn’t a philosopher in the relevant sense. He said philosophical things, but he didn’t do formal philosophizing.

Anyway, the aphorism is that all analogies limp. Analogy can be useful in explaining something that isn’t clear, but it is generally a weak form of argumentation. This is because argument from analogy is not good at demonstrating logical necessity.
[/quote]
Well, yes it is the analogy’s explanatory power that makes them useful in explaining axioms with in an argument in order to clarify the point, so I would say then we agree. And that is what I used analogy for in this case.

[quote]

Anyway, I still don’t see a single reason to believe that mathematics exist and do not supervene on the physical. The question of whether or not mathematics were discovered or invented–surely you know that this is a question of much contemporary debate. If you believe that it is certain that the debate is settled in your favor, why do you believe it? By this I mean: On what specific evidence do you affirm that mathematics exist as some sort of platonic non-physical ideal?[/quote]

Well I can take several tactics here, but I will only choose one which I think simplifies it the most. Which I can rely on the many worlds hypothesis. In a world with no sentient minds are mathematical maxims still true. Would 2+2 still equal 4 even if nobody knew it?
We know the proposition is true. We know that it cannot be false and that if something is true, that is to say is the case then it must exist. For that which does not exist cannot be true.

What evidence is there that is it is only the property of the human mind?

290

[quote]Facepalm_Death wrote:

[quote]kamui wrote:
That’s pretty close :

Si les droits n’existaient pas, il faudrait les inventer.

But indeed, the fact is that we can’t invent them arbitrarily.

So, even if there is no “natural right”, the “invention of right” still has some structural rules.

This is enough to disprove a strictly positivist position.
And it makes the idea of “natural rights” pretty close to the truth in practice, if not exactly/technically/epistemologically true,[/quote]

In practice, without any external force guiding them, people would believe their rights are infinite, they are “allowed” (they would never think of using this term) to do whatever they want, nothing would ever restrict their actions except what is physically impossible.

Then as people interact and form cooperative relationships, conflicts arise. Person A takes an apple from person B. Person B feels “wronged” but doesn’t know what it means, but he still acts on it. Person B takes the apple back from Person A and Person A feels wronged. Now both people feel “wronged” but both have done the same wrong thing. At this point they may come to an agreement : don’t take my apple and i won’t take yours, or they might even form the general rule :no one can take anothers apples etc. realistically this situation would escalate in a revenge cycle until both people are trying to kill each other, and this would repeat over and over until people collectivly agreed not to steal

But the point is, everything seems to be a natural right at first, the only thing that is ever contructed is a restriction of rights[/quote]

I think if you start layering ‘wrongs’ I think you start to confuse the issue. It’s not that it’s not a proper ethical inquiry in itself. What we don’t want to confuse is what a natural right, being argued for and against is.
In this case it’s the right of a person to not be willfully wronged by another person. Does this right exist?

291

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
“I don’t want X to happen to me” does not logically entail that “There exists, and I have, a natural right not to be X’ed.” [/quote]

I agree, but I don’t think that is what anyone is arguing. I think most/all who oppose your view here are saying that if one says, “I don’t want X to happen to me,” then one knows that one does not have the right to X to others; one doesn’t believe he has a right not to be X’ed, he knows that he has no right to X another if he doesn’t want to be X’ed. I think everyone knows that.

I imagine that if there was enough demand to prove that such a universal feeling exists within the human mind, we could already do so with a machine measuring brain waves or something.

292

[quote]pat wrote:
In a world with no sentient minds are mathematical maxims still true. Would 2+2 still equal 4 even if nobody knew it?
We know the proposition is true.[/quote]

If physicalism is the case, then the question is contradictory.

How, after all, could we test it? Focus on your claim: “We know the proposition is true.” We do indeed. But how do we know that it is true? The question is meant to be taken literally: How do we find the value of an arithmetic expression like [2 + 2]?

293

[quote]pat wrote:
What evidence is there that is it is only the property of the human mind?[/quote]

I don’t that it is or that it isn’t. I do know that I cannot affirm the existence of something–a Platonic world of forms, for example–without good reason to do so.

Edited

294

[quote]kamui wrote:
That’s pretty close :

Si les droits n’existaient pas, il faudrait les inventer.

But indeed, the fact is that we can’t invent them arbitrarily.

So, even if there is no “natural right”, the “invention of right” still has some structural rules.

This is enough to disprove a strictly positivist position.
And it makes the idea of “natural rights” pretty close to the truth in practice, if not exactly/technically/epistemologically true,[/quote]

I don’t think it can be proven technically true simply because we only have a sense of what it is. But I think the weight of the evidence in theory and practice shows it has a merit as a truth proposition.

295

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
In a world with no sentient minds are mathematical maxims still true. Would 2+2 still equal 4 even if nobody knew it?
We know the proposition is true.[/quote]

If physicalism is the case, then the question is contradictory.
[/quote]
If physicalism be true, I don’t know the question can be asked. Truth in propositions has no meaning other than what’s arbitrarily assigned. If physicalism be true, then the values are arbitrarily assigned and they are neither true or false. That alone I would think invalidate physicalism.

[quote]
How, after all, could we test it? Focus on your claim: “We know the proposition is true.” We do indeed. But how do we know that it is true? The question is meant to be taken literally: How do we find the value of an arithmetic expression like [2 + 2]?[/quote]

By using the values and functions available arranged in this manner. To test it would be to change the physical conditions and see if it’s still true. Or remove the physical altogether and see if it’s still true. IF the physical conditions under which a proposition is true changes fundamentally, then the answer should be different.
That’s what the multi worlds hypothesis is good at. Reassigning your variables.

And the question then is are these values and mechanisms something physical? I don’t think a case can be made that they are…

I would like to see the case that math is physical be made. Can you put together a case? Argument or prose I don’t care.

296

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
What evidence is there that is it is only the property of the human mind?[/quote]

I don’t that it is or that it isn’t. I do know that I cannot affirm the existence of something–a Platonic world of forms, for example–without good reason to do so.

Edited[/quote]

Logic allows us to experience that which is not physically evident. The very practice of it is metaphysical.
I think to prove physicalism, one would have to prove that all that is true is arbitrarily based on physical conditions.
We can also simply argue away physical existence all together, after all we cannot prove the physical exists. We cannot prove our faculties are not flawed and that we interpret what we consider physical actually exists and is physical.
That’s another tactic, which is to argue away the physical. Nobody can prove it exists.

297

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
In a world with no sentient minds are mathematical maxims still true. Would 2+2 still equal 4 even if nobody knew it?
We know the proposition is true.[/quote]

How could we test it? Focus on your claim: “We know the proposition is true.” We do indeed. But how do we know that it is true? The question is meant to be taken literally: How do we find the value of an arithmetic expression like [2 + 2]?[/quote]

By using the values and functions available arranged in this manner…[/quote]

Exactly: By doing the calculation.

But when we perform a calculation, we perform it with and within our minds. A rock cannot perform a calculation: A brain is required.

Which means that the only way to test whether or not [2 + 2 = 4] “in a world with no sentient minds” would be to enter the world and perform the calculation. At which exact moment, the world in question is no longer “a world with no sentient minds.” It is a world with one sentient mind.

So if you find that 2 + 2 = 4 in the world in question, you still have not ruled out the possibility that the mathematics supervene on the physical components of your mind.

298

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]kamui wrote:
disregarding absurd demands of metaphysical proofs and faith-based pretenses

[/quote]

I believe this refers to me, at least the first half.

My response is that I don’t think this is remotely close to absurd:

[quote]
Jack: This thing we can’t see/hear/smell/touch/taste exists.

Jill: How do you know?[/quote]

In fact, I think absurdity is to be found wherever someone doesn’t respond as our wise Jill did.[/quote]

Jack: How do we know our senses are telling us accurately about what we can see/hear/smell/touch/taste?

299

[quote]pat wrote:

I would like to see the case that math is physical be made. Can you put together a case? Argument or prose I don’t care.[/quote]

Specific arguments–on both sides–have been made by people who spent their lives studying these things. Neither you nor I can understand them, and neither you nor I can refute them. What I am trying to do here is to get you to see that you know far less than you believe you know. “physicalism/Platonic idealism is not true” or “mathematics do/do not supervene on the physical” are, as claims, over-reaches by people who study these things for a living. Made by you and me, they are infinitely worse.

300

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
In a world with no sentient minds are mathematical maxims still true. Would 2+2 still equal 4 even if nobody knew it?
We know the proposition is true.[/quote]

How could we test it? Focus on your claim: “We know the proposition is true.” We do indeed. But how do we know that it is true? The question is meant to be taken literally: How do we find the value of an arithmetic expression like [2 + 2]?[/quote]

By using the values and functions available arranged in this manner…[/quote]

Exactly: By doing the calculation.

But when we perform a calculation, we perform it with and within our minds. A rock cannot perform a calculation: A brain is required.

Which means that the only way to test whether or not [2 + 2 = 4] “in a world with no sentient minds” would be to enter the world and perform the calculation. At which exact moment, the world in question is no longer “a world with no sentient minds.” It is a world with one sentient mind.

So if you find that 2 + 2 = 4 in the world in question, you still have not ruled out the possibility that the mathematics supervene on the physical components of your mind.[/quote]

The question isn’t whether something can calculate it, it’s whether or not the proposition is true. Is the proposition true in a world with nothing but rocks?