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To: laredo44
Laredo, if you don't understand what I'm saying, do a little research into what is known as the "ought-is" problem, or "Hume's Law", the "naturalistic fallacy", or the "fact-value" problem. They're all the same thing.

Again...is your car "evil"? Is a rock "noble"? And so on. Facts are not values, and values are not facts, and never shall the twain meet.

407 posted on 03/04/2003 11:06:27 AM PST by HumanaeVitae
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To: HumanaeVitae
Again...is your car "evil"? Is a rock "noble"? And so on. Facts are not values, and values are not facts, and never shall the twain meet.

I just heard on the radio that Michael Jackson has offered some witch doctor $150,000 to put a deadly curse on David Geffen. Oh yeah, there are folks who adamently believe "things" can be good or evil. Matter of fact, I think I've heard of people believing that trips to Lourdes were "good". They must believe the place itself is positive, or why the need to go there?

Let me go over my point again. 2+2=4 is an opinion. Why do you call it a fact? Because it's been so useful. It permits the establishment of a beneficial system of mathematics. If 2+2=5 were to be shown to permit the establishment of a beneficial system of mathematics, it would also be a "fact".

Don't think this could happen? One of Euclid's postulates stated that given a line and a point not on the line, there was one and only one line through the given point parallel to the given line. As a postulate, it is something not proved. You either agree with or not -- your choice. Many believed this particular postulate should be provable from the other postulates and tried for many years to do so. They were unsuccessful. A mathematician, Reimann I believe, said, OK, I won't accept the postulate. That means there is either no line that is parallel or more than one parallel line. From that rejection came hyperbolic and ellipitic geometries. Both have their uses, although I couldn't tell you what they are off the top of my head.

Like the "fact" that 2+2=4, the prohibition of random murder of any member of a society by another member has proven so useful that no society, to my knowledge, has ever permitted it. There is no way to establish a sustainable, successful society without this prohibition. It is simply a "fact".

464 posted on 03/06/2003 2:04:14 AM PST by laredo44
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