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To: donh
That is pretty close to an insane statement. There is nothing remotely "self-refuting" about standing outside a system to describe it. There can be paradoxes and unresolvable statements produced by standing INSIDE a formal system to describe it. Just in general, when we are trying to be careful and/or formal, we put a great deal of effort into making sure were are, in fact, standing outside the systems we try to describe

You are implying that there is something wrong with me noetically. Therefore, you owe an accounting of your notion of the same, an accounting that is consistent with your own presuppositions, because 'standing outside' a consciousness that is wholly a product of material/physical forces that purportedly produce (and continue to produce) the consciousness in the first place, in order to describe it from the outside is impossible.

Either from a purely materialist or naturalist point of view, there can be no rational justification or coherent accounting of the notion, "insane". If my thoughts are nothing but the product of evolutionary, physicial forces then there is no rational basis for anyone to say objectively that there is anything dysfunctional or 'wrong' with my thoughts because my thoughts are nothing but the effect of the same evolutionary, wholly chemical physical/chemical causes that anyone else's are; they are both simply a natural outgrowth of natural processes.

If the logical conslusion lead to absurdity, there must be something wrong with the premise.

Cordially,

293 posted on 04/19/2004 8:48:00 AM PDT by Diamond
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To: Diamond
You are implying that there is something wrong with me noetically. Therefore, you owe an accounting of your notion of the same,

I apologize if that offended you. However, I do not take seriously the notion that that therefore implies that there is something wrong with you. If I said, "that sentence is ambiguously constructed". or "that does not logically follow". Would you jump to the same conclusion? I am, in my opinion, particularly in this forum, entitled to make critical judgements about statements you make, even if I express them in flowery language.

an accounting that is consistent with your own presuppositions,

You talk funny, cut it out. I respond much better to plain english regarding concrete entities.

because 'standing outside' a consciousness that is wholly a product of material/physical forces that purportedly produce (and continue to produce) the consciousness in the first place, in order to describe it from the outside is impossible.

See comment above. And 1) you started out complaining that the statements in question were "self-refuting" BECAUSE they were statements about science, not from "within" science. Apparently, you want to have your epistimological cake, and eat it too. And 2) there is nothing remotely "impossible" about standing inside a thing (such as, in this case, I guess, consciousness) to describe it. it is done all the time. It is fraught with formal problems--that doesn't mean it can't be done.

Either from a purely materialist or naturalist point of view, there can be no rational justification or coherent accounting of the notion, "insane". If my thoughts are nothing but the product of evolutionary, physicial forces then there is no rational basis for anyone to say objectively that there is anything dysfunctional or 'wrong' with my thoughts because my thoughts are nothing but the effect of the same evolutionary, wholly chemical physical/chemical causes that anyone else's are; they are both simply a natural outgrowth of natural processes.

This is a fairly wellworn creationist dodge--usually applied to morals, rather than to sanity. And just as easily refuted by existence proofs. Despite the fact that there is no reasonably sound evidence of a moral-giving god, or a sanity-giving god, it remains the case that we can easily identify moral and sane individuals based on pure naturalistic, human-useful definitions--which is good enough for government work.

If the logical conslusion lead to absurdity, there must be something wrong with the premise.

Which would be important, if we were seriously engaged in logic here.

And, by the way, this is not a foregone conclusion, there could also be something wrong with your logic. There could also be something wrong with your mapping of a real-world event into a set-theoretic representation upon which logic can usefully work. You may also be working with perfectly correct premises, within a perfectly correct logical system perfectly correctly executed, but the logical system might be inappropriate for the domain of discussion. The abstract notion of "logic", proffered as a defense, is a mighty thin reed to be hanging an argument on, all by itself.

297 posted on 04/19/2004 9:50:23 AM PDT by donh
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