A revolution in thought

[But]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I have said over and over that if people don't believe that Lessans' observations are as astute as I know they are, then they can do more empirical testing. I've said this many many times.

You've proposed no real test of your own. And there are lots of tests for his claims which we have discussed in detail in this thread, and his claims fail every single one of them.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by But

You've proposed no real test of your own. And there are lots of tests for his claims which we have discussed in detail in this thread, and his claims fail every single one of them.

I don't have the means to empirically test his claims. I need help here. I'm willing to do what it takes to test his observations. What else can I do But, but continue my quest to get his claims taken seriously.

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I don't have the means to empirically test his claims. I need help here. I'm willing to do what it takes to test his observations. What else can I do But, but continue my quest to get his claims taken seriously.

Personally, I'd rather have you hawking Lessans' book over the whole anti-vaccination thing. That's certainly your most harmless activity online.

I think LadyShea has the right idea - go start a discussion on the social media pages of Chopra or the likes. If the book gets popular enough, you might gain the attention of one of these crackpots.

I don't predict success, though. I predict that every conversation you had here or at CFI will repeat itself, and possibly some creative new disagreements will arise.

[GdB]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Not true Miss Snippety. Why don't you ask me before jumping to conclusions, like you always do.

LadyShea is right. I have followed and participated in the CFI threads. You were not banned due to administrator's personal dislikes:

Further, because of repeated violations of forum policies intended to prevent trolling and copyright violations, peacegirl has been banned from the forum.

The moderators wish to stress, however, that other members have also engaged in behavior contrary to the intent of the rules cited above, and future posting will be judged in the context of this behavior. Heated, personalized, and disruptive threads cannot be created and sustained by the trolling of one member but require the participation and complicity of other members. If you cannot respond to such behavior appropriately within the guidelines set for this forum, or if your posts are helping to sustain a pointless and disruptive thread such as this, we encourage members to moderate their own behavior and refrain from posting which is unproductive or which may violate the forum rules.

This was also meant against breakup, whose thread to continue the closed thread of 'revolution in thought' was deleted completely, and he got a warning to.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Not true Miss Snippety. Why don't you ask me before jumping to conclusions, like you always do.

Originally Posted by GdB

LadyShea is right. I have followed and participated in the CFI threads. You were not banned due to administrator's personal dislikes:

LadyShea is not right. I will say, once again, that I was used as an example, and a bad one at that. I never trolled and I never was disruptive. In fact, I was very polite to Doug. If my responses were disruptive at all, it was because of thedoc (aka BreakUp) whose sole goal for coming to that forum was to make a mockery of my thread.

Originally Posted by GdB

This was also meant against breakup, whose thread to continue the closed thread of 'revolution in thought' was deleted completely, and he got a warning to.

He should have warned BreakUp, not me. I did nothing wrong. I was trying to share this discovery, and there was some good discussion. The reason he banned me is due to the vaccination thread. They disliked my position, period. It had nothing to do with copyright infringement, as I stopped immediately when he told me not to post large text.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

Personally, I'd rather have you hawking Lessans' book over the whole anti-vaccination thing. That's certainly your most harmless activity online.

I think LadyShea has the right idea - go start a discussion on the social media pages of Chopra or the likes. If the book gets popular enough, you might gain the attention of one of these crackpots.

I don't predict success, though. I predict that every conversation you had here or at CFI will repeat itself, and possibly some creative new disagreements will arise.

It's unbelievable how narrow you are in your judgment of people. It's either you or them. Everybody is put into a classification. I guess it makes you feel more important when you're in the "scientific" classification and they're in the woo. There will be disagreement and there will agreement once the book gets the careful investigation it deserves. I know that going to forums is not productive. It also shows that "in the box" thinking prevents people from taking a chance on new ideas. That said, I'd rather be in an unmoderated forum than to be constantly worried about being banned for whatever reason the moderator or administrator comes up with.

[specious_reasons]

I went and read the CFI thread. I liked your explanation of the modal fallacy, GdB.

Although she was already scolding the participants in the middle of a fairly reasonable conversation:

It’s amazing to me that a center for inquiry has no inquiry. It seems to me (I may be wrong) that when a position is different from those who have a different point of view, the stamp of disapproval will be swift and sure.

I do have to admit that the people following peacegirl around did drag the conversation down faster and less pleasantly. Honestly, I'm embarrassed for those people, and I'm embarrassed for myself again for participating in this conversation, which I know is a dead end.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

I went and read the CFI thread. I liked your explanation of the modal fallacy, GdB.

Although she was already scolding the participants in the middle of a fairly reasonable conversation:

I do have to admit that the people following peacegirl around did drag the conversation down faster and less pleasantly. Honestly, I'm embarrassed for those people, and I'm embarrassed for myself again for participating in this conversation, which I know is a dead end.

Could you cut and paste his post here? I can't read it over again because I'm banned. I almost take the shunning as a badge of honor.

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Could you cut and paste his post here? I can't read it over again because I'm banned. I almost take the shunning as a badge of honor.

The whole explanation was drawn out across multiple posts, but the basic argument was laid out here, which you should still be able to view (I am not a forum member at CFI and I could see it):
CFI Forums | Revolution In Thought

I will quote it with GdB's permission.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by But

You've proposed no real test of your own. And there are lots of tests for his claims which we have discussed in detail in this thread, and his claims fail every single one of them.

added to post:

They actually don't fail every single one of them. In fact, his claims don't fail at all. If the eyes are efferent, it no longer becomes "how can a person see without the light getting there", which is the battle cry of this forum. The light is already there, which everyone is failing to see (no pun intended).

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

The whole explanation was drawn out across multiple posts, but the basic argument was laid out here, which you should still be able to view (I am not a forum member at CFI and I could see it):
CFI Forums | Revolution In Thought

I will quote it with GdB's permission.

But I was banned specious_reasons. It won't let me enter the site.

[LadyShea]

You dont have to enter the site to read the threads. I never even joined. I was a lurker, you could be one too!

[But]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

added to post:

They actually don't fail every single one of them. In fact, his claims don't fail at all. If the eyes are efferent, it no longer becomes "how can a person see without the light getting there", which is the battle cry of this forum. The light is already there, which everyone is failing to see (no pun intended).

Okay, so let's start over again. Can you explain the Fizeau wheel experiment?

[GdB]

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

I will quote it with GdB's permission.

Permission granted.

Peacegirl, as said, being banned should not mean that you cannot read in the CFI-Fora. I cannot imagine that they block your IP. Maybe you must just empty the cache of your browser, and delete the CFI-Cookie. Ask help of somebody if you don't know how.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by But

Okay, so let's start over again. Can you explain the Fizeau wheel experiment?

But, this is not related. We know that light travels at a certain rate of speed and this is one of the experiments that helped to determine what that speed is. In order to determine this, light had to travel to get here. But we're talking about the eyes and how they work, which is the opposite of how it is believed they work. If we see an object in space, the light IS already at the retina. This doesn't mean light isn't traveling. It just means that light doesn't have to reach Earth for us to have the ability to see a distant object if it meets the requirements of efferent vision (i.e., the light has to be luminous enough surrounding the object, and the object has to be large enough to be seen, which is similar to the requirements of afferent vision except for this small change of light having to reach Earth). Right now it is assumed that what we are seeing is the image that light is bringing. Lessans disputed that it is not light that allows us to see the image (which is delayed and time related). Rather we are seeing the real object with light being a necessary condition. Please think about this before jumping all over me. I'm sure my explanation is less than satisfactory for you, which is why more empirical tests need to be done with his claim in mind. Right now the experiments are done to confirm what is already believed to be true.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by GdB

Permission granted.

Peacegirl, as said, being banned should not mean that you cannot read in the CFI-Fora. I cannot imagine that they block your IP. Maybe you must just empty the cache of your browser, and delete the CFI-Cookie. Ask help of somebody if you don't know how.

Maybe you're right. I'll try later. When I try to access CFI it says system offline but maybe it's the CFI cookie doing it. If I need help, I'll ask someone. I wanted to go back to retrieve Steven Lawrence's explanation as to why a modal fallacy doesn't exist. I wish he would come over here and help support me. I am so tired of being the odd man out. It's a breath of fresh air to have someone on my side, although he had no interest in actually taking the next step which is to read the book. With all due respect, I do appreciate where you're coming from in your compatibilist worldview but it doesn't fly when you analyze this position deeply.

[But]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

But, this is not related. We know that light travels at a certain rate of speed and this is one of the experiments that helped to determine what that speed is. In order to determine this, light had to travel to get here. But we're talking about the eyes and how they work, which is the opposite of how it is believed they work. If we see an object in space, the light IS already at the retina. This doesn't mean light isn't traveling. It just means that light doesn't have to reach Earth for us to have the ability to see a distant object if it meets the requirements of efferent vision (i.e., the light has to be luminous enough surrounding the object, and the object has to be large enough to be seen, which is similar to the requirements of afferent vision except for this small change of light having to reach Earth). Right now it is assumed that what we are seeing is the image that light is bringing. Lessans disputed that it is not light that allows us to see the image (which is delayed and time related). Rather we are seeing the real object with light being a necessary condition. Please think about this before jumping all over me. I'm sure my explanation is less than satisfactory for you, which is why more empirical tests need to be done with his claim in mind. Right now the experiments are done to confirm what is already believed to be true.

Nope, that wasn't what I was asking.

Explain the Fizeau wheel experiment, in your own words.

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by GdB

Permission granted.

Peacegirl, as said, being banned should not mean that you cannot read in the CFI-Fora. I cannot imagine that they block your IP. Maybe you must just empty the cache of your browser, and delete the CFI-Cookie. Ask help of somebody if you don't know how.

It's a bit long - I won't change much. I highlighted the part that I thought had a particularly good example of why the modality of a statement doesn't change with time.

Assume, yesterday you choose dish 5 in the restaurant. Yesterday it was March, 17th.

Is the following sentence necessarily true:

peacegirl ate dish 5 in the restaurant at March, 17th.

Now assume it is March, 16th. I know we are determined, but predictions what you will eat are impossible. However, of course I already know that the restaurant offers 10 different dishes. So I write down 10 sentences:

1. peacegirl will eat dish 1 in the restaurant at March, 17th.
...
5. peacegirl will eat dish 5 in the restaurant at March, 17th.
...
10. peacegirl will eat dish 10 in the restaurant at March, 17th.

Now I know one of these sentences is true (of course it is number 5). So here is my question: is sentence 5 necessarily true?

Again a set of questions:
1. Is the sentence ‘If I heat up a kettle of water, it will boil after a time’ true?
2. Is the sentence ‘If I tomorrow heat up a kettle of water, it will boil after a time’ true?
3. Is the sentence ‘If I yesterday would have heated up a kettle of water, it would have boiled after a time’ true?

Now, I don’t even have a kettle, I heat my tea water with a water cooker. So above sentences are definitely all in my imagination. Now are they true or not?

4. Is the sentence ‘We can choose between 10 different dishes in the restaurant’ true?
5. Is the sentence ‘You can choose dish 5 in the restaurant’ true?
6. Is the sentence ‘You can choose dish 7 in the restaurant’ true?

Now, yesterday we went to the restaurant and you chose dish 5.

7. Is the sentence ‘Yesterday you could have chosen menu 5 in the restaurant’ true?
8. Is the sentence ‘Yesterday you could have chosen menu 7 in the restaurant’ true?

As variations you can answer the following variants:

a. Assume choices are determined.
b. Assume our choices are not determined.
c. Answer all the same questions, but now replace ‘true’ with ‘necessarily true’.
If this leads you to different answers, then please explain.

I hope I will find some time later to react on other points in your post.

And the follow up:

The problem you have is that the sentence ‘peacegirl eats dish 5 at March 17th.’ does not change its modality (from simply true to necessarily true’) just because it happened. It is, and was, not necessarily true because there were other dishes to choose from. It has nothing to do with my lack of foreknowledge of what you will choose. Given determinism, it was fixed that you would eat dish 5, even that we could not know that fact. It is true before, and it is true after the fact happened. But when I know you are going to the cantina, then I know that there is no choice, so you will eat tomorrow’s only available dish.

In fact we went to this restaurant together, and I took dish 7. So today, I fully justified can say (e.g. because dish 5 was not as good as you hoped): ‘You could have chosen dish 7’. How do I know? Because I chose it! This is the normal meaning of ‘You could have chosen dish 7’, the rest is metaphysical mumbo jumbo. And this normal meaning of ‘could have done otherwise’ can bear the justification for blaming, praising and assigning responsibility.

So you agree with all my sentences:

1. If I heat up a kettle of water, it will boil after a time.
2. If I tomorrow heat up a kettle of water, it will boil after a time.
3. If I yesterday would have heated up a kettle of water, it would have boiled after a time.

But they are all part of my imagination! And they are still true! So being true of these sentences is independent of the fact if I really did heat up a kettle with water yesterday. So that ‘only in my imagination’ is irrelevant. I can have true sentences in my imagination or false sentences, but ‘being in my imagination’ does not belong to the criteria if a sentence is true or not.
[...]
You confuse the whole thing because you put ‘predictability’ into the equation: instead of saying ‘We can choose between 10 different dishes in the restaurant’, you consistently should have said ‘I can only choose one menu, even if I do not know yet which one’.

So now see the sentences with new eyes: look at them from the view of real options:
a) I can choose from 10 different dishes
b) I could have chosen from 10 different dishes.

Or if you want:
a) I can take dish 7, but I prefer dish 5.
b) I could have taken dish 7, bit I preferred dish 5.

Without changing the perspective, there is nothing special with the sentences b). They are the same as the sentences a), but in the past tense. And this, totally unproblematic meaning of ‘could have done otherwise’ is enough basis for our practice of blaming, praising and assigning responsibility. (‘Why did you take dish 5, you knew that there were brussels sprouts in it. You could have taken dish 7’).

[thedoc]

Peacegirl's back,

Mitch Miller - Happy Days are Here Again - YouTube

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

If my responses were disruptive at all, it was because of thedoc (aka BreakUp) whose sole goal for coming to that forum was to make a mockery of my thread.

He should have warned BreakUp, not me. I did nothing wrong. I was trying to share this discovery, and there was some good discussion. The reason he banned me is due to the vaccination thread. They disliked my position, period. It had nothing to do with copyright infringement, as I stopped immediately when he told me not to post large text.

I really didn't need to do anything to make a mockery of Lessans book, He and Peacgirl have done that very well themselves, and for proof, just read the book.

And Peacegirl is back playing the martyr card, just like old times. For me it started on the "Dissident Philosophy" forum where I didn't have any idea of her delusions.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Please think about this before jumping all over me. I'm sure my explanation is less than satisfactory for you, which is why more empirical tests need to be done with his claim in mind. Right now the experiments are done to confirm what is already believed to be true.

Not only are your explanations not satisfactory, they are wrong which is the real problem.

And you are incorrect in thinking that experiments are done only to confirm the existing theory, they are usually done to disprove a theory, that is what will bring fame and fortune to the scientists who devises the test.

The reason that experiments have not confirmed your fathers ideas, is because your fathers ideas are wrong. He was writing out of total ignorance of the science involved in the processes he was criticizing.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Maybe you're right. I'll try later. When I try to access CFI it says system offline but maybe it's the CFI cookie doing it. If I need help, I'll ask someone. I wanted to go back to retrieve Steven Lawrence's explanation as to why a modal fallacy doesn't exist. I wish he would come over here and help support me. I am so tired of being the odd man out. It's a breath of fresh air to have someone on my side, although he had no interest in actually taking the next step which is to read the book. With all due respect, I do appreciate where you're coming from in your compatibilist worldview but it doesn't fly when you analyze this position deeply.

You should certainly be able to read and copy paste posts from the CFI site without logging on. It's one of the most basic features of any site is that a guest can browse the forum and read the threads. How do you think they attract new members?

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by GdB

This was also meant against breakup, whose thread to continue the closed thread of 'revolution in thought' was deleted completely, and he got a warning to.

the only defense I have is that my contact with Janis (Peacegirl) goes back many years, and I was very familiar with her tactics when it comes to hawking her fathers book. I gave Peacegirl just what she wanted and had been asking for all those years, the problem is that Doug wasn't as familiar with Peacegirl and took my comments as undeserved attacks. My only goal in all this is to post the truth and reality to counter her fathers fiction.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I guess it makes you feel more important when you're in the "scientific" classification and they're in the woo. There will be disagreement and there will agreement once the book gets the careful investigation it deserves. I know that going to forums is not productive.
.

The truth is that you do not want a careful investigation or you would have gone to that place already, your only hope is to go onto forums where you think you can snow people into believing you have something worthwhile. Most of the concepts in the book have been tested and the truth is available to anyone who will put just a little effort into finding out the results.

[Angakuk]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I'm sure my explanation is less than satisfactory for you, which is why more empirical tests need to be done with his claim in mind. Right now the experiments are done to confirm what is already believed to be true.

Right! What we need now is for someone to conduct experiments that are designed to confirm what Lessans believed to be true. That would rectify all the past injustices inflicted upon Lessans by scientists with the wrong bias.