Where to draw the line: how Platonism haunts our discourse and the search for exorcism (page 9)

slimboyfat

This is one of the most frustrating threads i have read in a while. I feel like i wasted 20 minutes of my life following it. Can i get those 20 minutes back? Debating whether a rock is conscious or not, Jesus Christ.

Lol, yeah sorry about that. I started the thread wanting to talk about social construction of things like race, medical discourse, gender and so on. But somehow Cofty always manages to shift the conversation onto a flat earth, worms, and thinking rocks. It's as if he wants to make my views appear silly or something.

Mephis

Blame the Anglo-Saxons and the parts of the country which remembered the 'wey' post conquest. ;)

nicolaou

nicolaou: Some things can be called 'true' or a 'fact' without any nod to relativistic caveats. Go on, ask me for an example . . .

Slimboyfat; Okay, go on then.

(1) The ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter is pi. The value of pi has been calculated to more than 13 trillion digits but is commonly approximated to 3.14159

(2) In Euclidean space, the sum of the angles in any triangle is 180°

(3) The city of London is older than the New City of Milton Keynes.

(4) Hydrogen is the lightest element on the Periodic Table.

(5) Combining yellow and blue paints will never produce red paint.

(6) Ronald Reagan was President before Barack Obama.

(7) Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun.

(8) My wife's sticky toffee pudding with caramel sauce beats any other - hands down!

Look Slim', your way of life depends on some things being constantly true. Your clocks, phone, and computer wouldn't work if certain fundamental qualities were only true in some relativistic sense.

I mentioned the 'all and some' argument to you before . . .

Simon

My wife's sticky toffee pudding with caramel sauce beats any other - hands down!

I demand evidence of this in the form of a serving of said pudding - for truly, it is my favorite of all the puddings.

But somehow Cofty always manages to shift the conversation onto a flat earth, worms, and thinking rocks. It's as if he wants to make my views appear silly or something

Maybe because you use those as arguments and we show how ridiculous they are? Doubling down on crazy isn't a winning strategy

Vidiot

Simon - "...Doubling down on crazy isn't a winning strategy."

Sometimes fun to watch, though. :smirk:

Xanthippe

(1) The ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter is pi. The value of pi has been calculated to more than 13 trillion digits but is commonly approximated to 3.14159
(2) In Euclidean space, the sum of the angles in any triangle is 180°
(3) The city of London is older than the New City of Milton Keynes.
(4) Hydrogen is the lightest element on the Periodic Table.
(5) Combining yellow and blue paints will never produce red paint.
(6) Ronald Reagan was President before Barack Obama.
(7) Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun.
(8) My wife's sticky toffee pudding with caramel sauce beats any other - hands down!

(9) Pluto is the ninth planet of the solar system. oops no!! wrong! not anymore.

Nic I was just reminded of this when I saw your point 7. Do you watch the egg heads quiz? I remember the day Dermot Murnaghan said 'Pluto is no longer the ninth planet, when did that happen?'

Pluto was the ninth planet of the solar system from 1930 to 2005. It is no longer. Now it's a Dwarf planet, the largest of the Kuiper Belt Objects. Perhaps this is the kind of thing Slim is getting at?

cofty

In reality nothing changed about Pluto. There was a rethink about how the category of planet should be defined and whether that description fitted Pluto.

SBF is trying to say something about our inability to know things not just something about how we describe reality.

Xanthippe

Cofty you say SBF is trying to say something about our inability to know things not just about how we describe reality. I don't think so because he said this :-

We don't know what it is about how society is currently structured that will be subject to revision. Everything is tentative. That doesn't mean we can't believe in things or hold to certain perspectives we find useful. It just means we should be open to the possibility of revision.

I think he's saying something about our ability to be sure of things. I agree it doesn't seem to be important how we categorise a planet (although it might be if it was a question on 'millionaire' and you hadn't kept up). However if we take his example of mental illness, it certainly mattered to people who were mentally ill if they were treated as evil and chained in dungeon-like conditions or treated as ill and cared for in hospitals.

Changing human knowledge matters, so being dogmatic about what we know now seems inappropriate. This I believe is what this thread is about. If not, I'm sure Slim will tell me.

Wasanelder Once

I like turtles but now I'm not sure if its an acceptable assertion since turtles may, in and of themselves, not be that helpful.

nicolaou

Xanthippe that SBF quote you posted is a perfect example of the "nails down the blackboard" effect a single word can have - on me anyway.

That single word is 'Everything'.

Does it need explaining?

Where to draw the line: how Platonism haunts our discourse and the search for exorcism

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