Heh, you're right, I didn't notice the shift diagram on there in plain sight. It looked like a floor shifter for an automatic. I'm wondering why he's shifting anyways when he should be jumping...
Also, I find the complaints about the exclusivity of the debate a little disingenuous - they're mostly directed at the Democratic and Republican parties. What's up with that? The roster of participants was chosen by Walden University. Go harangue them.
Candidates don't participate in any debate outside of the agreements established by the Commission on Presidential Debates, which is run by members of the two parties. The CPD was created to take over the debates after the League of Women Voters refused to limit the debate to just the top two parties.
The candidates make arrangements for interviews on their own, but if another candidate will be there, the stipulation is that it only be the Dem/Rep opponent.
Walden University had a choice: 2 candidates or all the rest or none. There would have been no chance to get any third party candidate in a debate with a Dem or a Rep.
And you'll note that I didn't imply the CPD was responsible in my grandparent post. I said "the debate itself" excluded minor party candidates because I figured people could do their own research and was concentrating on the point that neither candidate answered the question and had one comment that was prima facie obvious based on just the debate.
They didn't even comment on the Commission on Presidential Debates which is Dems and Reps trying to limit the debates to just their parties, despite question number six asking about it.
Just another opportunity for the candidates to 1) not even answer the questions and 2) we didn't even see Barr/Nader/Baldwin/McKinney asked any of these questions on an equal level.
Why even bother asking about the commission on presidential debates when the debate itself excludes minor party candidates that have enough ballot access to potentially win the election?
Start a religion around it. The German constitution says something along the lines of unrestricted religious expression. That appears to contradict Scientology's greeting by the German government.
It would be great if he had discussions out in the open, but he just makes shit up because it would work that way in his ideal Libertarian horseshit of a world, asserts "false" to everything you say in reply, and then tells you you're appealing to authority. In the last discussion on Novick he got the last word to whatever the fuck suited his fancy to everybody he disagreed with because somehow he's being paid to do nothing at slashdot. I'm not going to subscribe to Slashdot or disable ABP until the idiot is put in his place, pure and simple. He posts with the/. logo next to his name, and it looks terrible, as if their reputation weren't bad enough. You don't see kdawson going around telling people they're false and idiots if kdawson can't come up with a valid argument and you point it out to him.
I'm serious. We don't need ESR-freaks like him in our midst. They just fuck shit up and try to detract away from the real freedoms we're losing every day because they think corporations should have the right to control society.
you never got around to explaining why it would cost more money other than to assert that it would cost more money False. Link to when you did so everybody can see it.
Now you've hijacked this discussion, again. Yes, to an extremist, someone who disagrees WOULD be viewed as "hijacking the discussion." However, to rational people, it is merely giving an opinion. When you spend your employer's time trying to get the last word in on every comment in the thread talking about how they're violating your ideology while not addressing their comments rationally, yes, that's hijacking it.
And please, stay out of OSCON. We here in Portland don't want you here. Go work for Microsoft or Google, instead, where they would agree with your market-based and Enron-like non-solutions for everything. Yawn. I was at the very first OSCON. Including before it was OSCON. I've spoken there many times. I was on the papers committee one year. I was given an award by O'Reilly at OSCON. I've been writing open source software and contributing to many open source projects for more than a decade. If you really want to attempt to impugn my "open source" credibility, be my guest. It will only make you look that much more foolish. I've never been able to afford to attend OSCON until now even though I lived here for many years. It's extremely expensive, which I never understood. There wasn't any value to it for most people. I'd like to see O'Reilly either drop the price or leave Portland. Most of the people in the open source community in Portland have never been able to attend it. We don't care about whether or not people won awards there. The local users groups have never been able to truly participate, which is a sad affair in itself. It's mostly for corporate-types like yourself.
We discussed the cost issues in the corresponding question article and you never got around to explaining why it would cost more money other than to assert that it would cost more money despite other western nations having a better health standard of living and spending less money on health care all while having universal health coverage.
You tried to get the last word in that time, and you weren't able to. Now you've hijacked this discussion, again.
Please go back to work at Slashdot and stop trying to hijack his response for your market-fundy ideology devoid of facts, logic, and rationality.
And please, stay out of OSCON. We here in Portland don't want you here. Go work for Microsoft or Google, instead, where they would agree with your market-based and Enron-like non-solutions for everything.
P: You make absolute statements P: I don't make absolute statements (hidden assumption) If and only if one doesn't make absolute statements is one arbitrary (some hidden deductions) C: You aren't arbitrary C: I am arbitrary
Your hidden assumption is flawed due to a false dichotomy of absolute and arbitrary. There's a bunch of area between those.
Thanks for playing Avoid Fallacious Logic, though. Try again next time.
That was the whole point of the discussion I started. You need it to establish that we need to follow your government intervention philosophy. No, in fact, I do not have to do any such thing. In fact, I could have had a totally arbitrary basis for what government should do, as you do. 1) If you don't like arbitrariness, then you should defend your philosophy as not arbitrary if it's to undermine mine.
2) If you think my philosophy is arbitrary and you don't like arbitrariness, then you should continue down that argument.
Either way your one-line assertions aren't helping your case.
"I exist, therefore I exist" (which is an identity principle) is a meaningful construction that leads to "the government should defend my private possessions." No. Again, those are separate discussions. You are not very bright. You decided to have a tangential discussion about self-evident rights. I can link the two -- very easily -- but that is not the point of this discussion you started. That was the whole point of the discussion I started. You need it to establish that we need to follow your government intervention philosophy.
Remember? I had a government intervention philosophy and you asserted that in your philosophy my intervention philosophy was incorrect based on the proof of yours. I was happy to entertain a proof of yours, but now you're saying it's not the point of the discussion. If your assertion has any validity to disprove mine through the soundness of yours, you need to finish your argument.
Since we're agreed that tautological statements aren't significant in providing a posteriori knowledge, tell me again, why "I exist, therefore I exist" (which is an identity principle) is a meaningful construction that leads to "the government should defend my private possessions." In proof form.
You see that you were thinking in the past, but you aren't now, nor have you ever been thinking.
Seeing is not thinking, as you said so yourself. That I'm able to reduce it to a possibility that your supposed thinking is merely just an act of observation (you yourself admit that it's an observation, though for some reason you say it has to transcend the sight) annihilates the entire point of Descartes' attempt at analysis.
That you are unable to doubt this is not a weakness in the argument, it's an argument from ignorance, Pudge.
Just saying it's self-evident doesn't make it so.
But if you said, I observe (and one of those observations is my existence through the instantiation of "I"), therefore I exist, I wouldn't care, because they are merely identical, tautological statements that are truly self-evident. But self-evidence is not meaningful for understanding reality.
For years the rationalists thought they had won the synthetic a priori argument, but true skeptics came along and showed that Peano's Postulates and Euclid's Axioms were found to both not be necessarily true. Euclid's Parallel Lines Never Intersect Axiom was shown that it's not necessarily true on curved space (relativistic geometry is a physical manifestation of curved space). Every axiomatic system ever developed has been shown to be unable to inform unless a synthetic observation is incorporated into its definitional framework.
That you're ignorant about basic logic and geometry and it shows in your ignorant philosophy is not an argument for your philosophy.
You appear to -- quite incorrectly -- think that Descartes was saying that thinking somehow creates existence. No, it is merely evidence of it. That's a huge straw man argument.
Thinking doesn't create existence. I never said anything was "created", in fact I said, "to instantiate 'I' implies its existence". I don't know how you got "create" from "implies", but didn't get "evidence of". An implication is certainly evidence for something.
You're off your rocker, dude.
You just said "thinking is required to think that something exists" (but you said recognize instead of think, but cognition is the process of thinking). I don't think thinking is relevant to the existence question. Stuff exists, then recognition happens.
Ask yourself, how do you "see" thoughts. Is what you "see" an implication of existence of anything else? If you can doubt what you "see", you can surely doubt that you "see" that you're thinking. It might be the most obvious of observations, but still, that doesn't imply that thinking is a metaphysical statement. It's just a statement that he exists (observed) and that he's, in addition to existing, thinking as well. Existence comes first, and his implication is thus redundant because he's instantiated it already. That he thinks is merely CONSISTENT with his existence.
You can prove you defecate with as much certainty as you can prove that you can think -- not absolute. In fact, you might not be thinking about thinking, but, you might have been made to have the impression that you thought, but you were just given memories of thinking in the past with the impression of continuity backwards, now, and even forward progression of thinking memories. It might be more accurate to say, "I have memories, therefore I exist". How far back does that go? Descartes was just an imperfect skeptic and confused his observations with self-evidence.
But I guess I'm just a shitload smarter than you and this is way over your head.
Cogito ergo sum is merely just an argument from the Instantiation Principle. The Instantiation Principle is actually a form of deduction. Descartes never doubted his existence, even though he should have -- his mind may merely be a computed automaton exposed to external inputs of contrived sensory data. What he thinks of himself may all be totally wrong. And because he can't tell the nature of this computed automaton, he doesn't really know anything about it at all.
But the important thing is that by saying "I think", he really means to say, "I exist and think", since to instantiate "I" implies its existence:
So he's really saying "I exist and I think, therefore I exist". That's really just a syllogism from existence. Existence was the observation necessary to establish that he existed. The thinking was merely additional. It's no more meaningful than "I defecate, therefore I exist."
So Hume is a moron. Plato and Aristotle, too, like in The Princess Bride?
Name the philosophers that weren't morons and I'll use their work to destroy you, instead.
You just ad hominem'd the man who demonstrated the is-ought problem that you haven't figured out how to get around. That's an excellent move in grade school, but not here.
Have you ever read Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics or the Critique of Pure Reason or the Critique Practical Reason?
Kant carried on in Hume's tradition and rigorously annihilated Descartes. That's the philosophical basis of my argument. What's yours, just Descartes' armchair bullshitting?
Universal Health Care is cheaper than the current system due to economies of scale, less bureaucracy, more preventative care accessibility, and more, as it is everywhere else in the world. It will thus cost less than what we pay now.
Exactly how does the creation of a new Bureaucracy create less bureaucracy??
It creates one bureaucracy that replaces thousands of little inefficient corporate bureaucracies.
Most people don't understand that corporations aren't shining examples of efficiency themselves, particularly when for competitive reasons they fail to create standardized protocols as is where we are now with the health insurance industry.
because you accuse me of misinterpreting you whenever you do it and I attempt to figure out what you actually meant.
False. I accuse you of misinterpreting me when you ASSERT that I said something I did not.
I didn't assert them, when they were vague, I just tried to make something consistent out of it. Since you don't actually have a consistent set of thoughts on this matter, I can't assume that you've merely made a mistake in transcribing your thoughts. So I'm not going to assume you're consistent anymore.
Each time, it turns out that you didn't actually mean what you said.
False.
but if they've prohibited building permanent structures on it, then that's something you simply don't own
Exactly. The Democrats pretend you DO own it, but you do not. They make you pay taxes on it, your name is on the deed as the owner, but they prevent you from doing anything with it.
They tax your land and/or the improvements (depending on the exact scheme), not the area above.
What's so difficult about the logic?
Nothing. Why do you ask? It's the Democrats who don't understand it, not property-rights advocates, who understand it completely. This is what I said in the last reply.
Keep asserting.
Again, you think you own something ancillary to the land itself
False.
So you don't own the airspace above the land and the ability to build on it. I'm glad we've established that.
which was what I was complaining that property-rights activists don't understand
Yes, and you were wrong.
Thanks for demonstrating my point.
I didn't.
In fact, it is the property-rights activists who DO realize that this is a debate over what people own. They are the ones who consistently and properly refer to restrictions of their property rights as a rejection of the premise that they own the land in the first place.
That's a false conclusion
False.
p = you own land
q = you own the airspace above the land
Now show me again how you go from p to q?
If you want both rights, you have to buy p and q.
... which is why you've consistently lost the argument in court. No court recognizes that an ability to use X with your land is an extension of your land ownership.
Also false. Unsurprisingly, you do not know what you are talking about. Indeed, there are many decisions, including Supreme Court decisions, that regard certain land use restrictions as takings. Nollan v. California Coastal Commission (1987), Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council (1992), and so on.
An example of takings is when you take the right to use the airspace above the land when you already had ownership of the airspace above the land. But if you never had the right, and the government was just letting you use the airspace and then changed their mind later, that's not takings. The debate is, as you agree, about what you actually own, not over takings itself.
That level of nuance isn't understood by property fundamentalists like yourself.
Yawn. Tell me again how you aren't committing a textboook appeal to authority logical fallacy.
When you don't have a reasonable reply
Ummmmmmm. You want a "reasonable reply" to an ad hominem/red herring fallacy? That is what "That level of nuance isn't understood by property fundamentalists like yourself" is. It is a fallacious claim. There is NO SUCH THING as a reasonable response to such a claim, except to call
I said they weren't different to you, then you disagreed and brought up only certain contexts and brought up a higher power yourself.
Yes, and then you mischaracterized what I said further.
But since you still insist that ability and right are synonymous
False.
I'll give you definitions
Also false. You apparently are unaware of the undisputed fact that dictionaries do not define words, they describe common definitions, and often do so incorrectly. A dictionary is absoultely the wrong tool to use to try to prove philosophical terms.
you have a right to have what you have a right to have, since the definition of property is merely, what you have a right to have. A redundant and _circular_ statement
Yes, this I proved this reasoning of yours is false, since I proved that it is deduced from the self-evident fact that I am alive.
I can't reply to a syntax error because you accuse me of misinterpreting you whenever you do it and I attempt to figure out what you actually meant.
Each time, it turns out that you didn't actually mean what you said.
Unfortunately most property-rights activists don't realize that the debate around property right is really a debate over what people own, not over whether or not to protect what people own.
So, you think the leftists who try to take away such rights are liars. For example, the King County executive who said that their critical areas ordinance that prohibited you from developing a majority of your own land was not taking your land, or saying you didn't own it. He said it is yours, and you can still pick blackberries on it, you just can't build on it.
Owning the land is different than developing into the airspace on top of it. Nobody can come remove your land (without eminent domain and just compensation), as it's yours, but if they've prohibited building permanent structures on it, then that's something you simply don't own. What's so difficult about the logic? Again, you think you own something ancillary to the land itself, which was what I was complaining that property-rights activists don't understand. Thanks for demonstrating my point.
In fact, it is the property-rights activists who DO realize that this is a debate over what people own. They are the ones who consistently and properly refer to restrictions of their property rights as a rejection of the premise that they own the land in the first place.
That's a false conclusion, which is why you've consistently lost the argument in court. No court recognizes that an ability to use X with your land is an extension of your land ownership. They say, instead, and rightly so, that the ability to use X is the ability to use X, and not the ability to use your land in any way you see fit. You can't use your land to murder somebody, for example, as that's a use of your land that's regulated. The government has default sovereignty, and then gives up rights in the Bill of Rights. Most of the sovereignty then falls to the states, and the states get to say that you can do whatever you want unless it violates its laws or, for example, the 14th amendment, which further makes applicable a number of rights in the bill of rights, but most definitely not the right to build whatever you want on top of your property.
That level of nuance isn't understood by property fundamentalists like yourself.
Yawn. Tell me again how you aren't committing a textboook appeal to authority logical fallacy.
When you don't have a reasonable reply, you repeat this even though I've addressed it over and over. You even reply to where I address it here, saying I'm an expert. I'll not reply to it anymore.
You said they're different but only in relation to a "higher power"
False. I said no such thing.
Here's where you did
False.
The only way you can say I don't have the right to murder is if you say there is some higher metaphysical power which says so. Otherwise, my existential abilities necessarily ARE existential rights. That doesn't mean all abilities are rights, but in this case, they are.
Yes, I said that. No, it does not say abilities and rights are only different in relation to a higher power. I am not sure where in there you think I did.
First, I was talking about only certain rights/abilities, as I explained from the outset, and you claimed (again) that I was referring to all. Second, I said here in this context that they are NOT different, but I left room for you to try to claim that they are by superimposing some higher power, since that is the only possible way to do it. Obviously, not the same thing as how you characterized it.
I said they weren't different to you, then you disagreed and brought up only certain contexts and brought up a higher power yourself. Here's the quote:
Since you're using the words "ability" and "right" synonymously
Only in certain contexts, such as existentially, where they necessarily ARE synonymous. There is no rational distinction.
But since you still insist that ability and right are synonymous, I'll give you definitions:
right: something to which one has a just and/or proper claim (where claim means to ask for especially as a right):
the dictionary seems to think a right is a statement of volition made properly or justly, in that the request ought to be satisfied.
In fact, the etymology of the word "ought" is actually from "to own". Property and "ought" are linked linguistically. Property is in fact something to which you can make a "proper" claim, to own. In fact, the word proprius in Latin means "own". Hume was essentially saying you own your life, your liberty, and what you own.
Saying a right to property is self-evident is merely just saying a tautology: you have a right to have what you have a right to have, since the definition of property is merely, what you have a right to have. A redundant and _circular_ statement. Circular statements can never be used to justify anything. That's a fallacy, you know?
Unfortunately most property-rights activists don't realize that the debate around property right is really a debate over what people own, not over whether or not to protect what people own. Do you own the air above the land? Property "rights" people would say yes, even though the government may not recognize that type of ownership as proper since we actually share common air.
That level of nuance isn't understood by property fundamentalists like yourself.
I don't believe in "higher metaphysical powers"
Exactly. So you have no justification for saying that I do not have rights.
You're kinda slow, aren't you?
I can discuss what you own without appealing to metaphysics.
In addition to that book on logic
Yawn. Tell me again how you weren't committing a textbook appeal to authority logical fallacy.
I'm an expert.
Your use of "existential" is meaningless
False.
If you mean it in terms of, say, an existential school of thought
No.
Aren't you going to say why government should support your property abilities now?
Nope. Foundational principles first
You don't think you supported them well enough?
Of course I did. Yet, you still don't get it. When you do, then we can continue.
You said they're different but only in relation to a "higher power" False. I said no such thing. Here's where you did, to refresh your memory:
The only way you can say I don't have the right to murder is if you say there is some higher metaphysical power which says so. Otherwise, my existential abilities necessarily ARE existential rights. That doesn't mean all abilities are rights, but in this case, they are. I don't believe in "higher metaphysical powers", and thus don't "say there is" one, so you're saying (by definition of otherwise) that the abilities are rights.
You even clarify and say "in this case, they are", referring again, to the most recent antecedent: the lack of a higher metaphysical power. Or did you goof and use an ambiguous pronoun?
In addition to that book on logic, you might desire to pick up a book on basic grammar. When you get to the bookstore, just ring me up and I'll tell you what books you need to get, since I fear you'll forget when you get there. I'm sure you don't get to a book store very often since you're in the back woods of my ancestral home, Snohomish County.
P.S. Your use of "existential" is meaningless. Existence isn't a predicate, instead it's demonstrated. If you mean it in terms of, say, an existential school of thought, then you've unnecessarily loaded the terms with baggage that prevents clear logic from application. I suggest you avoid such use of the term unless you know how to properly handle it.
Aren't you going to say why government should support your property abilities now? Nope. Foundational principles first You don't think you supported them well enough? I've given you plenty of opportunity to do it. Ball's been in your court for some time now.
little one. Your weight problem has no bearing on the quality of your argument.
You said they're different but only in relation to a "higher power", which isn't really meaningful, and isn't even relevant to our discussion, so you have yet to say how they are distinct for the purposes of your derivation of "should".
Aren't you going to say why government should support your property abilities now? I'm giving you an opening.
I'm fine using the term "ability" when you say right, since that' the meaning you're giving. If you would like, I'll call your definition of right "Pudge-right", or, an ability regardless of whether we should support it. You still haven't said how rights are any different from abilities. If you'd like, you're free to give your own definition of Pudge-right.
Why should we use government to enforce your property Pudge-right?
Oh, great, you agree that I didn't commit the fallacy and that your "proof" of existence of an ability doesn't have any bearing on how we should run government! Thanks for playing!
Since you're using the words "ability" and "right" synonymously, which most people won't understand, since for everybody else a right is something that government shouldn't interfere with, but abilities in general are not prohibited from being legislated, I'll just use the word "ability" when you say "right".
But I do find it odd that you don't prove that abilities should be protected by the government. Actually, that would be pretty much absurd on its face, because it's accepted that the ability to murder shouldn't be protected by government.
Maybe you want to take one more stab at explaining how rights are different than abilities, and how to derive a _right_ that should be supported without falling into the is-ought trap.
Slashdot Mirror
Heh, you're right, I didn't notice the shift diagram on there in plain sight. It looked like a floor shifter for an automatic. I'm wondering why he's shifting anyways when he should be jumping...
It was an automatic transmission, actually, if you look frame-by-frame in the trailer. Crisis averted.
Also, I find the complaints about the exclusivity of the debate a little disingenuous - they're mostly directed at the Democratic and Republican parties. What's up with that? The roster of participants was chosen by Walden University. Go harangue them.
Candidates don't participate in any debate outside of the agreements established by the Commission on Presidential Debates, which is run by members of the two parties. The CPD was created to take over the debates after the League of Women Voters refused to limit the debate to just the top two parties.
The candidates make arrangements for interviews on their own, but if another candidate will be there, the stipulation is that it only be the Dem/Rep opponent.
Walden University had a choice: 2 candidates or all the rest or none. There would have been no chance to get any third party candidate in a debate with a Dem or a Rep.
And you'll note that I didn't imply the CPD was responsible in my grandparent post. I said "the debate itself" excluded minor party candidates because I figured people could do their own research and was concentrating on the point that neither candidate answered the question and had one comment that was prima facie obvious based on just the debate.
They didn't even comment on the Commission on Presidential Debates which is Dems and Reps trying to limit the debates to just their parties, despite question number six asking about it.
Just another opportunity for the candidates to 1) not even answer the questions and 2) we didn't even see Barr/Nader/Baldwin/McKinney asked any of these questions on an equal level.
Why even bother asking about the commission on presidential debates when the debate itself excludes minor party candidates that have enough ballot access to potentially win the election?
It would be great if he had discussions out in the open, but he just makes shit up because it would work that way in his ideal Libertarian horseshit of a world, asserts "false" to everything you say in reply, and then tells you you're appealing to authority. In the last discussion on Novick he got the last word to whatever the fuck suited his fancy to everybody he disagreed with because somehow he's being paid to do nothing at slashdot. I'm not going to subscribe to Slashdot or disable ABP until the idiot is put in his place, pure and simple. He posts with the /. logo next to his name, and it looks terrible, as if their reputation weren't bad enough. You don't see kdawson going around telling people they're false and idiots if kdawson can't come up with a valid argument and you point it out to him.
I'm serious. We don't need ESR-freaks like him in our midst. They just fuck shit up and try to detract away from the real freedoms we're losing every day because they think corporations should have the right to control society.
Hey, Pudge,
http://interviews.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=491414&cid=22785306
We discussed the cost issues in the corresponding question article and you never got around to explaining why it would cost more money other than to assert that it would cost more money despite other western nations having a better health standard of living and spending less money on health care all while having universal health coverage.
You tried to get the last word in that time, and you weren't able to. Now you've hijacked this discussion, again.
Please go back to work at Slashdot and stop trying to hijack his response for your market-fundy ideology devoid of facts, logic, and rationality.
And please, stay out of OSCON. We here in Portland don't want you here. Go work for Microsoft or Google, instead, where they would agree with your market-based and Enron-like non-solutions for everything.
I find it curious that your argument is:
P: You make absolute statements
P: I don't make absolute statements
(hidden assumption) If and only if one doesn't make absolute statements is one arbitrary
(some hidden deductions)
C: You aren't arbitrary
C: I am arbitrary
Your hidden assumption is flawed due to a false dichotomy of absolute and arbitrary. There's a bunch of area between those.
Thanks for playing Avoid Fallacious Logic, though. Try again next time.
2) If you think my philosophy is arbitrary and you don't like arbitrariness, then you should continue down that argument.
Either way your one-line assertions aren't helping your case.
Remember? I had a government intervention philosophy and you asserted that in your philosophy my intervention philosophy was incorrect based on the proof of yours. I was happy to entertain a proof of yours, but now you're saying it's not the point of the discussion. If your assertion has any validity to disprove mine through the soundness of yours, you need to finish your argument.
Since we're agreed that tautological statements aren't significant in providing a posteriori knowledge, tell me again, why "I exist, therefore I exist" (which is an identity principle) is a meaningful construction that leads to "the government should defend my private possessions." In proof form.
Thanks.
You see that you were thinking in the past, but you aren't now, nor have you ever been thinking.
Seeing is not thinking, as you said so yourself. That I'm able to reduce it to a possibility that your supposed thinking is merely just an act of observation (you yourself admit that it's an observation, though for some reason you say it has to transcend the sight) annihilates the entire point of Descartes' attempt at analysis.
That you are unable to doubt this is not a weakness in the argument, it's an argument from ignorance, Pudge.
Just saying it's self-evident doesn't make it so.
But if you said, I observe (and one of those observations is my existence through the instantiation of "I"), therefore I exist, I wouldn't care, because they are merely identical, tautological statements that are truly self-evident. But self-evidence is not meaningful for understanding reality.
For years the rationalists thought they had won the synthetic a priori argument, but true skeptics came along and showed that Peano's Postulates and Euclid's Axioms were found to both not be necessarily true. Euclid's Parallel Lines Never Intersect Axiom was shown that it's not necessarily true on curved space (relativistic geometry is a physical manifestation of curved space). Every axiomatic system ever developed has been shown to be unable to inform unless a synthetic observation is incorporated into its definitional framework.
That you're ignorant about basic logic and geometry and it shows in your ignorant philosophy is not an argument for your philosophy.
Thinking doesn't create existence. I never said anything was "created", in fact I said, "to instantiate 'I' implies its existence". I don't know how you got "create" from "implies", but didn't get "evidence of". An implication is certainly evidence for something.
You're off your rocker, dude.
You just said "thinking is required to think that something exists" (but you said recognize instead of think, but cognition is the process of thinking). I don't think thinking is relevant to the existence question. Stuff exists, then recognition happens.
Ask yourself, how do you "see" thoughts. Is what you "see" an implication of existence of anything else? If you can doubt what you "see", you can surely doubt that you "see" that you're thinking. It might be the most obvious of observations, but still, that doesn't imply that thinking is a metaphysical statement. It's just a statement that he exists (observed) and that he's, in addition to existing, thinking as well. Existence comes first, and his implication is thus redundant because he's instantiated it already. That he thinks is merely CONSISTENT with his existence.
You can prove you defecate with as much certainty as you can prove that you can think -- not absolute. In fact, you might not be thinking about thinking, but, you might have been made to have the impression that you thought, but you were just given memories of thinking in the past with the impression of continuity backwards, now, and even forward progression of thinking memories. It might be more accurate to say, "I have memories, therefore I exist". How far back does that go? Descartes was just an imperfect skeptic and confused his observations with self-evidence.
But I guess I'm just a shitload smarter than you and this is way over your head.
Hah, you think it's unassailable...
Cogito ergo sum is merely just an argument from the Instantiation Principle. The Instantiation Principle is actually a form of deduction. Descartes never doubted his existence, even though he should have -- his mind may merely be a computed automaton exposed to external inputs of contrived sensory data. What he thinks of himself may all be totally wrong. And because he can't tell the nature of this computed automaton, he doesn't really know anything about it at all.
But the important thing is that by saying "I think", he really means to say, "I exist and think", since to instantiate "I" implies its existence:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instantiation_principle
So he's really saying "I exist and I think, therefore I exist". That's really just a syllogism from existence. Existence was the observation necessary to establish that he existed. The thinking was merely additional. It's no more meaningful than "I defecate, therefore I exist."
I'll talk about Plato's problems next.
So Hume is a moron. Plato and Aristotle, too, like in The Princess Bride?
Name the philosophers that weren't morons and I'll use their work to destroy you, instead.
You just ad hominem'd the man who demonstrated the is-ought problem that you haven't figured out how to get around. That's an excellent move in grade school, but not here.
Have you ever read Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics or the Critique of Pure Reason or the Critique Practical Reason?
Kant carried on in Hume's tradition and rigorously annihilated Descartes. That's the philosophical basis of my argument. What's yours, just Descartes' armchair bullshitting?
Universal Health Care is cheaper than the current system due to economies of scale, less bureaucracy, more preventative care accessibility, and more, as it is everywhere else in the world. It will thus cost less than what we pay now.
Exactly how does the creation of a new Bureaucracy create less bureaucracy??
It creates one bureaucracy that replaces thousands of little inefficient corporate bureaucracies.Most people don't understand that corporations aren't shining examples of efficiency themselves, particularly when for competitive reasons they fail to create standardized protocols as is where we are now with the health insurance industry.
I can't reply to a syntax error
There is none.
Re-read it.
because you accuse me of misinterpreting you whenever you do it and I attempt to figure out what you actually meant.
False. I accuse you of misinterpreting me when you ASSERT that I said something I did not.
I didn't assert them, when they were vague, I just tried to make something consistent out of it. Since you don't actually have a consistent set of thoughts on this matter, I can't assume that you've merely made a mistake in transcribing your thoughts. So I'm not going to assume you're consistent anymore.
Each time, it turns out that you didn't actually mean what you said.
False.
but if they've prohibited building permanent structures on it, then that's something you simply don't own
Exactly. The Democrats pretend you DO own it, but you do not. They make you pay taxes on it, your name is on the deed as the owner, but they prevent you from doing anything with it.
They tax your land and/or the improvements (depending on the exact scheme), not the area above.
What's so difficult about the logic?
Nothing. Why do you ask? It's the Democrats who don't understand it, not property-rights advocates, who understand it completely. This is what I said in the last reply.
Keep asserting.
Again, you think you own something ancillary to the land itself
False.
So you don't own the airspace above the land and the ability to build on it. I'm glad we've established that.
which was what I was complaining that property-rights activists don't understand
Yes, and you were wrong.
Thanks for demonstrating my point.
I didn't.
In fact, it is the property-rights activists who DO realize that this is a debate over what people own. They are the ones who consistently and properly refer to restrictions of their property rights as a rejection of the premise that they own the land in the first place.
That's a false conclusion
False.
p = you own land
q = you own the airspace above the land
Now show me again how you go from p to q?
If you want both rights, you have to buy p and q.
... which is why you've consistently lost the argument in court. No court recognizes that an ability to use X with your land is an extension of your land ownership.
Also false. Unsurprisingly, you do not know what you are talking about. Indeed, there are many decisions, including Supreme Court decisions, that regard certain land use restrictions as takings. Nollan v. California Coastal Commission (1987), Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council (1992), and so on.
An example of takings is when you take the right to use the airspace above the land when you already had ownership of the airspace above the land. But if you never had the right, and the government was just letting you use the airspace and then changed their mind later, that's not takings. The debate is, as you agree, about what you actually own, not over takings itself.
That level of nuance isn't understood by property fundamentalists like yourself.
Yawn. Tell me again how you aren't committing a textboook appeal to authority logical fallacy.
When you don't have a reasonable reply
Ummmmmmm. You want a "reasonable reply" to an ad hominem/red herring fallacy? That is what "That level of nuance isn't understood by property fundamentalists like yourself" is. It is a fallacious claim. There is NO SUCH THING as a reasonable response to such a claim, except to call
I said they weren't different to you, then you disagreed and brought up only certain contexts and brought up a higher power yourself.
Yes, and then you mischaracterized what I said further.
But since you still insist that ability and right are synonymous
False.
I'll give you definitions
Also false. You apparently are unaware of the undisputed fact that dictionaries do not define words, they describe common definitions, and often do so incorrectly. A dictionary is absoultely the wrong tool to use to try to prove philosophical terms.
you have a right to have what you have a right to have, since the definition of property is merely, what you have a right to have. A redundant and _circular_ statement
Yes, this I proved this reasoning of yours is false, since I proved that it is deduced from the self-evident fact that I am alive.
I can't reply to a syntax error because you accuse me of misinterpreting you whenever you do it and I attempt to figure out what you actually meant.
Each time, it turns out that you didn't actually mean what you said.
Unfortunately most property-rights activists don't realize that the debate around property right is really a debate over what people own, not over whether or not to protect what people own.
So, you think the leftists who try to take away such rights are liars. For example, the King County executive who said that their critical areas ordinance that prohibited you from developing a majority of your own land was not taking your land, or saying you didn't own it. He said it is yours, and you can still pick blackberries on it, you just can't build on it.
Owning the land is different than developing into the airspace on top of it. Nobody can come remove your land (without eminent domain and just compensation), as it's yours, but if they've prohibited building permanent structures on it, then that's something you simply don't own. What's so difficult about the logic? Again, you think you own something ancillary to the land itself, which was what I was complaining that property-rights activists don't understand. Thanks for demonstrating my point.
In fact, it is the property-rights activists who DO realize that this is a debate over what people own. They are the ones who consistently and properly refer to restrictions of their property rights as a rejection of the premise that they own the land in the first place.
That's a false conclusion, which is why you've consistently lost the argument in court. No court recognizes that an ability to use X with your land is an extension of your land ownership. They say, instead, and rightly so, that the ability to use X is the ability to use X, and not the ability to use your land in any way you see fit. You can't use your land to murder somebody, for example, as that's a use of your land that's regulated. The government has default sovereignty, and then gives up rights in the Bill of Rights. Most of the sovereignty then falls to the states, and the states get to say that you can do whatever you want unless it violates its laws or, for example, the 14th amendment, which further makes applicable a number of rights in the bill of rights, but most definitely not the right to build whatever you want on top of your property.
That level of nuance isn't understood by property fundamentalists like yourself.
Yawn. Tell me again how you aren't committing a textboook appeal to authority logical fallacy.
When you don't have a reasonable reply, you repeat this even though I've addressed it over and over. You even reply to where I address it here, saying I'm an expert. I'll not reply to it anymore.
I don't believe in "higher metaphysical powers"
Exactly. So you have no jus
You said they're different but only in relation to a "higher power"
False. I said no such thing.
Here's where you did
False.
The only way you can say I don't have the right to murder is if you say there is some higher metaphysical power which says so. Otherwise, my existential abilities necessarily ARE existential rights. That doesn't mean all abilities are rights, but in this case, they are.
Yes, I said that. No, it does not say abilities and rights are only different in relation to a higher power. I am not sure where in there you think I did.
First, I was talking about only certain rights/abilities, as I explained from the outset, and you claimed (again) that I was referring to all. Second, I said here in this context that they are NOT different, but I left room for you to try to claim that they are by superimposing some higher power, since that is the only possible way to do it. Obviously, not the same thing as how you characterized it.
I said they weren't different to you, then you disagreed and brought up only certain contexts and brought up a higher power yourself. Here's the quote:
Since you're using the words "ability" and "right" synonymously
Only in certain contexts, such as existentially, where they necessarily ARE synonymous. There is no rational distinction.
But since you still insist that ability and right are synonymous, I'll give you definitions:
right: something to which one has a just and/or proper claim (where claim means to ask for especially as a right):
the dictionary seems to think a right is a statement of volition made properly or justly, in that the request ought to be satisfied.
In fact, the etymology of the word "ought" is actually from "to own". Property and "ought" are linked linguistically. Property is in fact something to which you can make a "proper" claim, to own. In fact, the word proprius in Latin means "own". Hume was essentially saying you own your life, your liberty, and what you own.
Saying a right to property is self-evident is merely just saying a tautology: you have a right to have what you have a right to have, since the definition of property is merely, what you have a right to have. A redundant and _circular_ statement. Circular statements can never be used to justify anything. That's a fallacy, you know?
Unfortunately most property-rights activists don't realize that the debate around property right is really a debate over what people own, not over whether or not to protect what people own. Do you own the air above the land? Property "rights" people would say yes, even though the government may not recognize that type of ownership as proper since we actually share common air.
That level of nuance isn't understood by property fundamentalists like yourself.
I don't believe in "higher metaphysical powers"
Exactly. So you have no justification for saying that I do not have rights.
You're kinda slow, aren't you?
I can discuss what you own without appealing to metaphysics.
In addition to that book on logic
Yawn. Tell me again how you weren't committing a textbook appeal to authority logical fallacy.
I'm an expert.
Your use of "existential" is meaningless
False.
If you mean it in terms of, say, an existential school of thought
No.
Aren't you going to say why government should support your property abilities now?
Nope. Foundational principles first
You don't think you supported them well enough?
Of course I did. Yet, you still don't get it. When you do, then we can continue.
I came up with a secondary rationale that
You even clarify and say "in this case, they are", referring again, to the most recent antecedent: the lack of a higher metaphysical power. Or did you goof and use an ambiguous pronoun?
In addition to that book on logic, you might desire to pick up a book on basic grammar. When you get to the bookstore, just ring me up and I'll tell you what books you need to get, since I fear you'll forget when you get there. I'm sure you don't get to a book store very often since you're in the back woods of my ancestral home, Snohomish County.
P.S. Your use of "existential" is meaningless. Existence isn't a predicate, instead it's demonstrated. If you mean it in terms of, say, an existential school of thought, then you've unnecessarily loaded the terms with baggage that prevents clear logic from application. I suggest you avoid such use of the term unless you know how to properly handle it. Aren't you going to say why government should support your property abilities now? Nope. Foundational principles first You don't think you supported them well enough? I've given you plenty of opportunity to do it. Ball's been in your court for some time now. little one. Your weight problem has no bearing on the quality of your argument.
You said they're different but only in relation to a "higher power", which isn't really meaningful, and isn't even relevant to our discussion, so you have yet to say how they are distinct for the purposes of your derivation of "should".
Aren't you going to say why government should support your property abilities now? I'm giving you an opening.
I'm fine using the term "ability" when you say right, since that' the meaning you're giving. If you would like, I'll call your definition of right "Pudge-right", or, an ability regardless of whether we should support it. You still haven't said how rights are any different from abilities. If you'd like, you're free to give your own definition of Pudge-right.
Why should we use government to enforce your property Pudge-right?
Oh, great, you agree that I didn't commit the fallacy and that your "proof" of existence of an ability doesn't have any bearing on how we should run government! Thanks for playing!
Since you're using the words "ability" and "right" synonymously, which most people won't understand, since for everybody else a right is something that government shouldn't interfere with, but abilities in general are not prohibited from being legislated, I'll just use the word "ability" when you say "right".
But I do find it odd that you don't prove that abilities should be protected by the government. Actually, that would be pretty much absurd on its face, because it's accepted that the ability to murder shouldn't be protected by government.
Maybe you want to take one more stab at explaining how rights are different than abilities, and how to derive a _right_ that should be supported without falling into the is-ought trap.