Ahhh, but if snow were blue and urine were added to it, the snow would be green. It is because of the snow’s intrinsic whiteness that the snow is able to take on the color of whatever surrounds it without altering that color. In that way the snow remains white though the whiteness is obscured by some other color.
It’s not bad enough that the Islamists blew up their statues now you want to beat the Buddhists for having a different perspective? The doctrine of Not-self meets William James’ pragmatic test for starters. Face it, formal logic is a game. If everyone agrees to play by its rules, then certain outcomes pertain. But it doesn’t have the truth locked up. I think this is what popularly known as thinking outside the box, right. The Buddhists have centuries of experience at it. Perhaps there is merit in it. Do ya think?
and it makes less sense to take seriously anyone who claims to Know but cannot substantiate his claim of Knowledge.
-Imp
I’m not picking on Buddhists. I’m picking on you or on anyone else who says that they believe there is no difference in being beaten over the head with a baseball bat and not being beaten over the head with a baseball bat.
I’m available at anytime to demonstrate the difference although I sincerely doubt I’ll find any takers among my idealist (or at least idealist wannabes 
) on this board.
No. It is what is popularly known as being irrational.
You seem to have an odd notion of what logic is. Logic is not truth. Logic is a tool by which we may infer certain propositions to be true on the basis of their logical connection to other propositions that we hold to be true.
Don’t be afraid of logic. It is your friend.
You can save me much time and wasted keystrokes if you will tell me right now whether you intend to “play by the rules of logic” in your replies or if you intend to play by your own rules such as the (seemingly, on this board) ever popular ~(p & ~p) is false.
Experience at what? Having experience – whether the experience consists of centuries, millennia, or ages – at being mistaken about reality will never make the mistaken view of reality correct. That’s not how truth works. Sometimes I wish it was, but sadly, it’s not.
OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!YYYEEEEEAAAAHHH!!!
after arguing with me for days about it now, finally Reality Check accepts my description of the relationship between reality and logic(when it helps you win an arguement)
‘‘Logic is not truth, logic is a tool by which we may infer certain propositions to be true on the basis of their logical connection to other propositions we hold to be true’’
The wording is changed so it glosses over the details but it’s what I have been saying.
Aside from this, I am now assured of victory on the subject, if you use it, you accept it RC. Case closed. I win.
Given that Hume’s notion of the self is shockingly similar to the Buddhist one, and Hume is considered to be something of a paragon of logic, I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss Buddhist claims.
Also, while logic is a finely crafted hammer, you’ve got to be careful because the world is not a nail . . .
Sorry, but I don’t follow.
Perhaps you misread? I didn’t say that logic is not true. Logic is true. It is absolutely true. I said that logic is not the same thing AS truth.
Are you able to discern the difference in those two statements?
While the laws of logic are absolutely true they themselves do make any particular proposition true. When logic is used validly in an argument whose premises we believe are true, it means only that we must rationally accept the conclusion to be true also.
Both of the following arguments are perfectly logically valid arguments:
Argument 1:
All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
Socrates is mortal
Argument 2:
All men are immortal
Socrates is a man
Socrates is immortal
The logic is perfectly correct (or valid) in both arguments even though only one of the arguments leads to a true conclusion.
Do you see what I’m getting at?
David Hume would laugh in your face if you told him that ~(p&~p) is false. If you do not believe that is true, then on what possible basis can you rationally express the belief that you do not believe that it is true?
By the act of arguing against its truth you must acceptance its truth; if you do not accept its truth then you cannot rationally argue against it; which presents a bit of a conundrum for your side, huh, X?
Since Hume applied extreme skepticism to damned near everything, including himself, which is where you get his bundle theory of self. This is precisely the same thing as Buddhist reincarnation and is damned close to the Buddhist notion of self.
And you haven’t responded to my comment, I am waiting for it.
Far greater philosophers than either you or I have recognized a separation between existential and ontological beings and becomings. This is the same argument.
Sigh. I’ve never known a Buddhist who had a problem distinguishing between the two, only those who felt like wielding one when they try to describe to Westerners what the Buddha taught about reality.
When Buddhists say it’s both white snow and not white snow, we’re referring to the doctrine of two truths: conventional & ultimate. That’s what I was pointing to in my earlier post. Two truths, coexistent, interdependent, no separation. In the world of mental construct and language, however, we point to them as two.
So here on ILP, using the convention of language that we apply in standardized form in response to particular stimuli, you and I will both say, "there’s some white snow’. We will be in agreement and will be right. Conventionally speaking.
Ultimately, whether you assess the snow to be ‘white’ or ‘chartreuse’, it’s an historical application of a label that you’ve learned. (Historical because by the time we name it as “white snow”, it is no longer the reality that we sensed.) In the ultimate sense, the ‘reality’ of snow’s existence is that it is impermanent and conditioned upon other phenomena. There is no inherent, independently existing ‘snow-essence’ to be found. As well, Buddhism negates subject-object dualism, so to apply any label to phenomena that you see (or touch or taste or hear or smell) is to create an illusion. A necessary one for our existence in the conventional world, of course, but still an illusion. Ultimately speaking, that is. Which can’t be done. It’s easier to knock someone’s noggin with a bat, except the path includes not harming others. 
Linguistic Relativity
Both the appelatives ‘white’ and ‘nonwhite’ can be applied to the ‘same’ object (snow) on two levels:
(a) The Phenomenological Level
The words we use to describe reality refer primarily to our senses, to our experience of the phenomenon. Sometimes snow is white, sometimes its not; ‘snow’ is in fact already many shades, colors, full of microtextures and mini-reflections… The point being that sensation alone is not sufficient to distinguish between ‘white’ and ‘nonwhite’. So snow is white and not white, at the same time, because our language is insufficient to describe reality as we actually experience it.
Thus, there is a sense in which ‘all snow is white’ is true, and another sense in which ‘no snow is white’ is true. These senses overlap; that is, there are worlds in which it is not a contradiction to assert that snow is white and snow is not-white.
(b) The Ontological Level
Asserting that ‘snow is not white’ is not identical to saying ‘it is not true that snow is white.’ The point here is that there are levels of difference deeper than ‘mere’ contradiction. Just because I say one thing about the world, and you say a different thing… this doesn’t mean that we’re necessarily in contradiction, or that there is a paradox.
Hi Joe.
I agree that “snow is ‘not white’” is not the same thing as saying “it is not true that snow is ‘white’” but I don’t recall that being disputed in this thread.
What I dispute is that ~(p&~p) is false.
I dispute that the claim “This snowball that we both see in front of us at this moment is both ‘white’ and ‘not white’ in the same respect” is a rational claim.
It’s really a simple argument about elementary logic. It’s surprising that so many people apparently do not see that.
If you don’t agree that ~(p&~p) is false then you cannot rationally argue the point that ~(p&~p) is false.
I don’t think anyone is arguing that they are in the same respect. I don’t think such a claim has ever been made.
Think about the statement that the canvas of the Mona Lisa is flat and white. This is actually a very important fact! If you’ve ever seen a canvas, they are off-white, almost tan in color and they are anything but flat. Canvas is a textured material. So, Da Vinci actually had to paint the canvas white many, many times and carefully sand/scrap (I’m not sure which) the dry white paint off to provide a flatter texture and then repaint it white. This is a process common to renaissance painters and it takes months to complete.
Now, of course if one were to see the Mona Lisa right now, the canvas is anything but white – it is the Mona Lisa. However, were the canvas not white the Mona Lisa would be a very different painting: the colors would be different, the texture would be different, ect.
So, it is the canvas’s state of being white that allows the Mona Lisa to be the Mona Lisa. In this way, the canvas is both white and not white.
Right. Xunzian’s got it, but perhaps for a reason that ought to be elaborated.
The point is that the painting is a process. As it is being created, or made visible, it is ‘becoming’ the Mona Lisa.
The point here about ‘P and not P’ occurring as a simultaneous event has got to be understood, again, in terms of a process.
Consider the snow again. As molecules of water get thrown up into the colder regions of the atmosphere and thrown around, that is, as the water is ‘becoming’ snow, we can say – not ONLY that it’s both ‘white’ and ‘not white’ – but even more strangely, we can say that it’s both snow and not-snow at once.
The creation of a work of art is the same. It’s always a process and an object at once. Saying ‘this work of art is finished’ is impossible; whose judgment would we be invoking? The same kind of ‘absolute’ judgment is the sort which figures in modal logic. The snow either IS or ISN’T, there’s no in-between because logic only considers the compossibility of events. We cannot therefore use this ‘closed’ ontology to study the genesis of events – that is, processes – because as such these are extra-ontological.
Then you haven’t read much of the thread and the other thread from which it spun off. This isn’t a criticism of you personally so much as it’s a general observation about posting habits. I do the same thing at times. We all do.
I bet I included the very phrase that you say you believe hasn’t been made (‘in the same respect’) no fewer than a dozen times in this thread. It’s difficult to imagine that someone might reply to my points in this thread and be ignorant of the fact that I was discussing the law of noncontradiction when I thought I had made that about as transparent as it’s possible to make something transparent; but I suppose it is possible.
What I have to say is slightly odd, though, is that in the post just before you make the claim “I don’t think anyone is arguing that they are in the same respect. I don’t think such a claim has ever been made” I wrote "I dispute that the claim “This snowball that we both see in front of us at this moment is both ‘white’ and ‘not white’ in the same respect is a rational claim.”
I’ve also written that to believe that ~(p & ~p) is false is to opt out of rational discussion. Kriswest not only disagreed with this claim but actually took umbrage at it. Few others made any mention of it but most posters seem to take positions that indicate they accept Kris’ position, i.e., rational discussion is possible even if ~(p & ~p) is false.
Just to clarify matters (if possible), who here agrees with me that ~(p & ~p) has to be true in order to argue rationally? Who disagrees with that claim?
RC you just agreed with me on this subject the post in the religion forum to win an arguement with someone else, stop pushing this, it’s old and you are wrong.
RC you just agreed with me on this subject the post in the religion forum to win an arguement with someone else, stop pushing this, it’s old and you are wrong.
I already pointed out (either in this thread or in that one) that you misinterpreted what I wrote in that thread.
If you want to explain precisely what it is that you believe I wrote in the other thread that supports your position in this one (or copy-n-paste it) I’ll be happy to once again to point out your error.
Otherwise, I’d appreciate getting your answer to this question:
If ~(p & ~p) is false then how is rational argument possible?
Support your assertion using examples. Ideally from this thread, since I haven’t been paying attention to the other, but if you must then so be it.