When you can’t get somebody to admit that they’d trust the word of a physicist on matters of physics over that of a little kid, then you’ve arrived at one of the limitations of arguing over the internet. A person never has to admit when they’re wrong if they never have to look you in the eye when they’re spouting preposterous nonsense. Maniacal Mongoose demonstrates another limitation- if you stick to your guns long enough, sooner or later somebody out there will wipe the drool off their chin long enough to mutter some agreement. Even Ecmandu threads will get some new guy stumbling in to say “That’s a good point, Ecmandu!” if they go on long enough.
I’m not saying to trust, that’s exactly what the traps people into thinking that someone is right because they are the authority. That is not correct reasoning and not how to operate. Trust no one, think for yourself, do not fall to the snake charmers, the authorities, etc, because they are “shiny”.
Well thank you Mongoose - it was left open because it should be left open. It’s for the sake of intellectual “honesty” - not to be deceptive or to trick. If knowledge is, then how knowledge got there is irrelevant to it being knowledge, for the sake of it being knowledge. So you’re right, say the 5 year old is a psychic. Perhaps the child is a genius. Perhaps the physicist made a simple mistake, or miscommunicated something. Perhaps the physicist cheated through college. Perhaps the physicist is a sociopathic liar. Perhaps the child got lucky.
The point of this whole thread is that reason and logic, coupled with your values essentially are the authority, not people.
"So you’re right, say the physicist is a psychic. Perhaps the physicist is a genius. Perhaps the kid made a simple mistake, or miscommunicated something. Perhaps the kid is a sociopathic liar. Perhaps the physicist got lucky. "
Almost all your statements can be turned the other way around, except the one about cheating in college.
So they are both in the same boat. As are you.
Indeed they can. But in any case, it doesn’t mean they are right because of who they are.
What makes him/them right?
This is the kind of thing people say when they don’t understand what induction is or how it works. You are lacking a fundamental understanding of critical thinking. The things you SAY about critical thinking exist only to make yourself seem wise, and to win arguments on the internet. “Trust no one, think for yourself, etc.” is a fucking platitute with no rational baring on actual epistemology.
That’s the problem with the New Atheism that all your claims sprout from- it begins with a political attitude, a posturing, and then justifies that posturing on the basis of how it makes a person feel to say things consistent with that posture. Meanwhile, it’s completely divorced from reality.
That divorce from reality explains the arguments you’ve been having with everybody in a nutshell: they make statements about how things are, you reply with statements about how you want to be seen. That’s very clear in the above quote, but it’s certainly not the only place.
For example, everybody here knows that you’re completely full of shit: we all know that you believe in the existence of Africa, black holes, neutrinos, pygmy rhinos, where your car is parked, what’s for dinner tonight, and any number of other things purely on the basis that somebody who seems trustworthy told you so.
We all know it.
But you think it makes you an intellectual superstar to deny this, and to claim that each and every thing you believe is believed because you personally investigated it and came to a conclusion, or else you’ll claim you don’t have a belief. You’ll happily lie to all of our faces and tell us that you don’t have an opinion on whether or not the planet Neptune exists before you’ll admit that you believe in it basically because astronomers who seem authoritative told you so.
So the people still talking to you aren’t trying to convince you of a philosophical point, because I think we all already know you get our point. The people still talking to you are trying to trick you into being honest instead of posturing.
I don’t know why they bother.
I’m not sure that he does get our point. Maybe the blind spot is just too big.
What would it take to get comprehension?
What kind of convolutions will we see in the meantime?
Nothing I stated alludes to me not understanding induction. I already told you I’m not talking about probabilities here and wasn’t in the response you replied to. I don’t know how Think for yourself, question authority is a platitude when I provided multiple posts about it, including a rather nice quote as well. I mean, go ahead, don’t think for yourself, don’t question authority. Whatever they say, you should do, by all means Uccisore. Whoever they are, I’m sure they have your best interest in mind. The Politicians are authority, yes? Lawmakers? The supreme Court? Or perhaps they aren’t authorities? I don’t know. It’s just to get some people who take things for granted because of prestige, to continue to think critically about what people say, not be lured by their prestige. That’s a platitude to you? I mean, it is rather basic. Perhaps that’s why you find no value in it yourself. Or you actually think we shouldn’t question authority? What exactly are you arguing for?
Actually that’s the problem with your preconceived bias of categorizing me as a “New Atheist”, and whatever type of people you associate with that label, which I have no idea what kinds of people you do associate with that label. I don’t think anything I’ve said has to do with feelings. I don’t know what is divorced from reality either, about what I say, because you don’t provide reason to back up your view of reality, whatever that is. Is it objectivist? I don’t know. I don’t really care, you don’t even make arguments, I’ve only see you reply negatively to others. You’re so anti, I have no idea what you even stand for.
We all do? Knowledge is it? Or are you sure it’s not belief? Perhaps you’re conflating the two?
I know of the existence of Africa. This is knowledge. I know of black holes, this is knowledge. Neutrinos I’m not very knowledgeable on. I wouldn’t know much about them. Same with pygmy rhinos. Do they exist? I never really thought about them. I know where I left my car and parked it. I don’t know if its still there. It should be. I don’t know what’s for dinner tonight. I won’t know until its served. Even then I might not know. If you believe all these things about your daily life, go ahead, just don’t push your beliefs on me.
I love when people tell me how I think. It tells me more about them than it does I. No I don’t think “it makes me an intellectual superstar”. That’s kind of funny. Hilarious 
Thanks for the laugh.
Trick me? Ok. People are talking to me to trick me? All of them? Here only? Or everywhere? Acturus is trying to trick me? Phyllo? Moreno? They don’t think I’m honest? You know this?
I don’t know why you bother either, nothing I stated alludes to me not understanding induction. I already told you I’m not talking about probabilities here and wasn’t in the response you replied to. I don’t know how Think for yourself, question authority is a platitude when I provided multiple posts about it, including a rather nice quote as well. I mean, go ahead, don’t think for yourself, don’t question authority. Whatever they say, you should do, by all means Uccisore. Whoever they are, I’m sure they have your best interest in mind. The Politicians are authority, yes? Lawmakers? The supreme Court? Or perhaps they aren’t authorities? I don’t know. It’s just to get some people who take things for granted because of prestige, to continue to think critically about what people say, not be lured by their prestige. That’s a platitude to you? I mean, it is rather basic. Perhaps that’s why you find no value in it yourself. Or you actually think we shouldn’t question authority? What exactly are you arguing for?
Not being on the internet. There are some points that can only be made by seeing the look on somebody’s face, or hearing the tone of their voice when they try to refute them. That point came when he declared he doesn’t have a position on what anybody means by the words they say.
If anything, his blind spot is rendering him unable to see just how obvious his chicanery is. But when he spends a day arguing that a scientist shouldn’t be trusted over a child, he knows what he’s doing. He may not realize how obvious what he’s doing is to the rest of us, but he knows.
That’s a serious indictment of non-personal interaction.
Of course it does. If you understood induction, you would see this.
You are talking about probabilities, you just don’t know that you are, because you lack some basic knowledge of how critical thinking works.
Yes, obviously. It makes it pretty clear that it’s a platitude when you defend it with passive aggressive scolding like that. Non platitudes are typically defended with arguments or evidence.
That would be another fault of yours. It’s a common enough term that applies pretty exactingly to the things you say and the reasons you say them.
You don’t reply to the posts where I make arguments because it is difficult, remember? That’s why I don’t make them to you anymore.
How do you know?
Yeah, it has it’s limitations. I don’t see any other way to slice it though. A person with a typical psychology and personality type can’t say “I don’t know what any of you mean by the words you’re saying to me right now” without some facial queue or gesture indicating that they’re playing games.
I have an agnostic position. I never said I never had a position. Strawman after strawman.
People used to exchange letters so non-personal interaction is not new. What is new is that it has become available to a larger group of people. Some of them are not prepared to go beyond superficial posturing.
Yeah, it’s not new. I’m sure people wrote retarded letters to each other back in the day, making wild claims backed by the fact that people couldn’t hear their tone of voice or see their facial expressions. Newspaper ads come to mind.
Yeah, so you have a position and it’s the agnostic position.
I call bullshit on that.
I clearly said “There are some points that can only be made by seeing the look on somebody’s face, or hearing the tone of their voice when they try to refute them. That point came when he declared he doesn’t have a position on what anybody means by the words they say.”
So I don’t know what the hell he’s calling a strawman. I can’t tell if he misread me, or if he just means something so oblique by his words that stating he doesn’t have a position is accusing him of having a position, to him.
Explain how its necessary that I must believe that I have fully understood your meaning with every word you used to express your meaning, as opposed to knowing I do not know your meaning, but have a good idea based on the words you used to represent your meaning.
The part where you are claiming " I declared I don’t have a position on what anybody means by the words they say"
I never declared that or anything like that.