After the significant amount of argument about proof and absolute truth on my previous thread 'Define your faith' over on the religion section of the debate forums, I'd like to start up a dedicated thread to putting the soundness of propositions to the test.
The challenge is simple: to prove propositions definitively
The first question here is: what justifies a proposition as true and how can we justify this method?
The second question is: can we apply this method without using a propostion as part of the justification?
And the final question is: how can we ensure all methods are used correctly, without error?
The biggest hurdle seems to be the first one- how do we justify our system of justification? It seem to me that we either need a method of justification that doesn't need to be justified (how would we know one when we see it?) or a justification that doesn't relate to any method of justification (which doesn't make sense).
All and every propositions or methods are relevant here- no matter how much they diverge from any norm, so give whatever you've got.
As far as I know the simple answer is no. I'm pretty sure there are people better then me to explain this so I will only spit the little I know on this subject.
To prove a preposition you will invariably use other prepositions, which must be proved as well or assumed to be true. So this 'proof' will always looks like a bunch of prepositions one implying the next with very general prepositions at the base. The issue is, can we prove the base prepositions if we assume other even more basic prepositions to be true ? There's any form of guarantee that this process can be iterated infinitely and at the end we will end up with system of prepositions all implying each other without any contradictions ? If yes, then we would be a facing a ultimate proof - a proof that can't be challenged at any grounds, ever.
However It seems the guarantee we have is precisely the opposite. We know for sure that in any system like this we will stumble in prepositions that cannot be implied by any other (despite being truth !), so we must assume it is true - making any possible proof never a "ultimate proof". This have to do with Godel and high level logic I'm not familiar with.
Here I'm assuming proof means mathematical/logical proofs. But if these kind of proofs have this weakness all other kinds of proofs (experimental, statistical) inherit this very same issue because they all relies on logic.
I won't lie, I'm don't know for sure what I'm talking about. This a very superficial understanding of things, so hopefully someone will correct me or give a better account of this topic.
Proofs are a logical operation. But all logic statements contain assumptions. Essentially logic just operates to demonstrate sudo-mathematical relationships between these sets of assumptions. Think of a Ven Diagram. You can make certain statements that are true about the relationship of different things based on their arrangement. This is the basis of logic itself. However you have to supply the content. Also, merely drawing a basic conclusion about certain relationships requires some knowledge or assumptions of those things to begin with. If you could somehow demonstrate without a doubt the truth of a specific presupposition, you could theoretically draw out other truths logically from that basis.
As far as proving the assumptions themselves? Well, let's put it this way, no one has convincingly proven a primary presupposition to base all other proofs of Truth on. Plenty have tried. You can trace this back all the way to Plato with the forms and before. More recently (relatively), Descartes' Meditations essentially try to start with a single truth, that God exists, and he extrapolates from that. Kant claimed there are a priori truths (truths known without experience) that can be used as a foundation, though like logic, at some point you have to bring in subjective and therefore flawed experience. The Logical Positivists of the 20th century tried to posit truth in language itself. Except none of it has really panned out. I think you have to take this sort of metaphysical examination with a grain of pragmatism (or perhaps religiousity) and just take a few basic things on faith and go from there.
Edit: I'll add, once you get to the experience side of proofs (the assumptions), then enters problems of doubt and the impossibility of complete knowledge. The idea that something can happen a million million times exactly the same way, but nothing logically allows you to assume that it will continue to that way indefinitely. An interesting thought experiment that illustrates this involves reverse engineering a computer program. You enter an input, 1, and it outputs 1. You do the same for 2, 3, 4 and 5, and each time it displays your input. You do this up to the number 1000, and it stay on the same. We can confidently speculate that the program is merely output=input but there is nothing we can do that can prove that with absolute certainty. For all we know, the program could be written output=if(input<1000,then"input",otherwise "input*input"). In some sense the history of physics and our understanding of it in context of scale is an example of this. Essentially, we cannot have complete knowledge of the state of existence, and therefore can only make approximations to truth.
Proofs are a logical operation. But all logic statements contain assumptions. Essentially logic just operates to demonstrate sudo-mathematical relationships between these sets of assumptions. Think of a Ven Diagram. You can make certain statements that are true about the relationship of different things based on their arrangement. This is the basis of logic itself. However you have to supply the content. Also, merely drawing a basic conclusion about certain relationships requires some knowledge or assumptions of those things to begin with.
As far as proving the assumptions themselves? Well, let's put it this way, no one has convincingly proven a primary presupposition to base all other proofs of Truth on. Plenty have tried. You can trace this back all the way to Plato with the forms and before. More recently (relatively), Descartes' Meditations essentially try to start with a single truth, that God exists, and he extrapolates from that. Kant claimed there are a priori truths (truths known without experience) that can be used as a foundation, though like logic, at some point you have to bring in subjective and therefore flawed experience. The Logical Positivists of the 20th century tried to posit truth in language itself. Except none of it has really panned out. I think you have to take this sort of metaphysical examination with a grain of pragmatism (or perhaps religiousity) and just take a few basic things on faith and go from there.
Agree generally.
As for the last part, I disagree.
Belief is not required for thought and action. You can think and act in terms with something without believing it, and do so according to a pragmatic ideal- which is also itself not believed but rather taken a principle of practice.
I talked a bunch about this idea and my specific version of it in the other thread I linked, here's a summary:
"Let us consider a hypothetical scenario. I am in a hallucination but don't know it. I can think normally, and consider things in the usual manner which leads me to the idea that reason is the guide for understanding. I don’t know that reason works, but within my experience, it seems to be the only sensible decision- my experience conforms to it. Within my hallucination, I experience a sequence of what seems to be the consequences of my actions. Every time I do a particular something, a particular something else happens and there's no apparent cause of that event other than my action, is it not valuable to use that information to inform other decisions? If at any point, I do that action and the result I thought would happen doesn't happen, and there's no apparent disruption, would it not be valuable for me to re-evaluate my idea? Even if I find out that it was all just my mind playing tricks on me, I have nonetheless done something of value in potentially improving the experience of the hallucination- it may well be that in my hallucination I was capable of affecting what happened- that some of what seemed to be was what was.
Considering this scenario, how do we differentiate between it and our own experience? How can we determine that existence is reasonable and predictable, or that our sense are accurate? This seems to be impossible to prove, yet it is clearly abstractly possible (that is, it may or may not be true, not that it is metaphysically possible as this is uncertain) that it is true. Given this, it is possible that our decisions are meaningful and our experience constitutes a reasonable reflection of reality. So we have something to gain from taking our experience as it is. Do we have anything to lose? It doesn’t seem so. Whether or not our experience is true, it is valuable to treat as if it is true."
As far as I know the simple answer is no. I'm pretty sure there are people better then me to explain this so I will only spit the little I know on this subject.
To prove a preposition you will invariably use other prepositions, which must be proved as well or assumed to be true. So this 'proof' will always looks like a bunch of prepositions one implying the next with very general prepositions at the base. The issue is, can we prove the base prepositions if we assume other even more basic prepositions to be true ? There's any form of guarantee that this process can be iterated infinitely and at the end we will end up with system of prepositions all implying each other without any contradictions ? If yes, then we would be a facing a ultimate proof - a proof that can't be challenged at any grounds, ever.
However It seems the guarantee we have is precisely the opposite. We know for sure that in any system like this we will stumble in prepositions that cannot be implied by any other (despite being truth !), so we must assume it is true - making any possible proof never a "ultimate proof". This have to do with Godel and high level logic I'm not familiar with.
Here I'm assuming proof means mathematical/logical proofs. But if these kind of proofs have this weakness all other kinds of proofs (experimental, statistical) inherit this very same issue because they all relies on logic.
I won't lie, I'm don't know for sure what I'm talking about. This a very superficial understanding of things, so hopefully someone will correct me or give a better account of this topic.
This is a good account of the problem.
So far everyone seems to be siding with the philosophical scepticism.
Waiting for a foundationalist/infinitist/coherentist to offer a more opposing view and try to make a definite proof .
Ahh yes, and if I am a brain in a jar? Whether or not you believe it is real or not irrelevant. If what I am experiencing is good or bad, what practicality is there to descending a rabbithole of metaphysical doubt when you are none the wiser in the process? At some point you find yourself upon a raft understanding for which you color your existence. This will always start with a presupposition, essentially a truth we accept on faith.
Also, the edit above concerning absolute certainty of our experiences. There is no way to view the world from the point of view of God. So to put in different words, at some point, you have to do a simple cost benefit analysis and go with what seems to be the case.
Would you also like me to give you the meaning of life? Ontological certainty isn't really a question of conviction of belief. In fact, it is because that we cannot demonstrate objective truth without reference to our own subjective experience that is the issue. If you want to argue to the contrary, then I would expect that you furnish the proof, as I am shooting at nothings.
Would you also like me to give you the meaning of life? Ontological certainty isn't really a question of conviction of belief. In fact, it is because that we cannot demonstrate objective truth without reference to our own subjective experience that is the issue. If you want to argue to the contrary, then I would expect that you furnish the proof, as I am shooting at nothings.
My position as stated above is not a proof, but a practical framework of thinking. It doesn't rest upon a belief, it rests upon abstract meaning.
Do we know for sure that it's possible to doubt something?
No
I know where you are going, 'but you just doubted doubting'. But did I? I doubt it .
The most important concern to address in this area is that thinking about possibilities is a method of justification that itself needs to be justified. 'I thought about and it must be impossible' is a statement that can only be as accurate as your ability to think.
If you say so. Or did you just stumble unwittingly upon your own presuppositions about the world? Perhaps you have merely circumscribed the limits of logic only to rebound back to the catalyst of your own reasoning. Who knows and what does that even mean? Does it even matter but to color your perception of things?
This is a hallucination. Ok. This is real. Really really real? This this doesn't matter. Fair enough. But the moment your thought turns to action and your indecision becomes intentionality, you've implicitly found some foundation by which to moor your existence. Some belief by which to hang your faith. It's all the same.
Yep DJK, this is where the conversation ends. Trying to doubt the possibility of doubting is a paradox. If it isn't possible to doubt this claim, then you proved that something can be known for certain. If it is possible to doubt this claim, then you just successfully doubted something and proved that something can still be known for certain.
Your response to this is just "I doubt it, which is an exercise of doubting. You just proved doubting is possible again. You're left in a paradoxical loop where no matter what you do, you prove that it's possible to doubt something. You just don't like to admit the logical consequence of this conclusion, so you refuse to follow the argument to its conclusion. It's basically a more sophisticated version of what Typh00n is doing when he claims to be open to being convinced by evidence that an airplane hit the pentagon, then automatically rejects all evidence given anyway.
It's much better to just take your simplified view and expand it to say, "We can ultimately prove some things, mostly self-defined concepts, but we can't ultimately prove a lot of other things. We can prove it's possible to doubt, we can't prove that we're not in the matrix."
Yep DJK, this is where the conversation ends. Trying to doubt the possibility of doubting is a paradox. If it isn't possible to doubt this claim, then you proved that something can be known for certain. If it is possible to doubt this claim, then you just successfully doubted something and proved that something can still be known for certain.
Your response to this is just "I doubt it, which is an exercise of doubting. You just proved doubting is possible again. You're left in a paradoxical loop where no matter what you do, you prove that it's possible to doubt something. You just don't like to admit the logical consequence of this conclusion, so you refuse to follow the argument to its conclusion. It's basically a more sophisticated version of what Typh00n is doing when he claims to be open to being convinced by evidence that an airplane hit the pentagon, then automatically rejects all evidence given anyway.
It's much better to just take your simplified view and expand it to say, "We can ultimately prove some things, mostly self-defined concepts, but we can't ultimately prove a lot of other things. We can prove it's possible to doubt, we can't prove that we're not in the matrix."
No, no, no.
It seems to me that I am doubting.
I am doubting? How can I prove it?
Again, you keep justifying things by thinking about them. How do you know this works?
Such a method of justification needs to itself be justified else it is arbitrary and cannot be relied on to determine truth. You're cheating the question by avoiding addressing your method.
You cannot answer the challenge until you can answer this part:
what justifies a proposition as true and how can we justify this method?
In order for your arguments to work, thinking about things needs to be a justification method that can also be justified.
Otherwise, I have no reason to believe that your conception of possibilities and process of thinking is anything that is capable of understanding truth.
You cannot answer the challenge until you can answer this part:
what justifies a proposition as true and how can we justify this method?
In order for your arguments to work, thinking about things needs to be a justification method that can also be justified.
Otherwise, I have no reason to believe that your conception of possibilities and process of thinking is anything that is capable of understanding truth.
You have avoided the question.
Though it may seem to me that I am doubting, unless I can provide a justified justification system that justifies this fact or some sort of raw justification that needs no justification (how would we know it?), I cannot know.
I have no motivation to walk through all the years of philosophy if you refuse to accept the very process of thought as evidence for itself.
Doubt is a concept we invented. We know what we mean when we say "doubt". It refrences uncertainty. It must be possible to doubt something, because the very process of being uncertain about this claim is proof of itself. Because this thought process relies on no sensory information and cannot be decieved. It is a description of the thought process itself. Even if someone was controlling your mind and forcing you to doubt something you would otherwise be certain of, you'd still be experiencing what we call doubt.
The existence of thoughts are evidence of themselves. Likewise, concepts are just thoughts we labeled. They are indeed self-justified. And we know that because it would be impossible to even be doubting in the first place if it was impossible to doubt.
I have no motivation to walk through all the years of philosophy if you refuse to accept the very process of thought as evidence for itself.
Doubt is a concept we invented. We know what we mean when we say "doubt". It refrences uncertainty. It must be possible to doubt something, because the very process of being uncertain about this claim is proof of itself. Because this thought process relies on no sensory information and cannot be decieved. It is a description of the thought process itself. Even if someone was controlling your mind and forcing you to doubt something you would otherwise be certain of, you'd still be experiencing what we call doubt.
The existence of thoughts are evidence of themselves. Likewise, concepts are just thoughts we labeled. They are indeed self-justified. And we know that because it would be impossible to even be doubting in the first place if it was impossible to doubt.
Your justification for 'conception (of thoughts) is a valid justification' is 'I thought about it and it must be true'. Is that not circular? This is basically the same as 'the bible is the absolute truth' because 'the bible says it is'.
It's nothing to do with the definition of doubt, there's no need to talk about what doubt is, the point is whether you, or I, or anyone else, is doing it. In order to prove it, you need a complete justification and your conception based argument has a hit a brick wall in one step.
I will ask again: how do I know thinking about things is a valid method of justification?
You cannot reference your thinking, that is circular.
Let's make it a logical argument, though that weakens the breadth of the argument as in this form it relies on the truth of logic, but it makes the point well I think.
P1. Propositions require justifications not based on the proposition itself.
A basic foundation of justification logic.
P2. ‘Conception is accurate’ is a proposition
Definition.
P3. Conception is a necessary part of any method of verifying propositions
Experiential 'fact'.
C1. Therefore, conception cannot be justified.
You can't justify your method if it's the only one you've got
P5. Therefore, from C1 and P3 , no propositions can be justified
C2. Therefore, complete justification is impossible
You're mixing up "circular" with "self-evident". Your conflation of the two ideas is why you think everything ends up being a flawed circular argument, when in reality experiencing doubt demonstrates that it is possible to experience doubt.
You're mixing up "circular" with "self-evident". Your conflation of the two ideas is why you think everything ends up being a flawed circular argument, when in reality experiencing doubt demonstrates that it is possible to experience doubt.
"the point is whether you, or I, or anyone else, is doing it"
Are you experiencing doubt?
Prove it.
Are you now or have you ever felt uncertain about anything?
If the answer is anything but an unequivocal "yes" you're experiencing doubt as you think about this. That feeling of uncertainty is what we label doubt.
Are you doubting that you're experiencing doubt right now?
It seems to me.
How do I prove it?
Doubt is the description we give to that feeling. You just proved it.
This is why concepts we use to label things can indeed be proven valid, because they are fully defined and exist within the realm of thought (which is self-evident by the thinking). Can't be certain I'm in a cold room right now, but I CAN be certain that I'm experiencing something that I have decided to label "cold".
No thanks. It feels like you're determined to make this a never-ending rabbithole no matter what I say. This is not because it IS a never-ending rabbit-hole, but as we've seen with Typhoon, refusal to accept ideas and continued spiraling back to earlier points can artificially create one. You might want to go read some Descartes though.
The challenge is simple: to prove propositions definitively
The first question here is: what justifies a proposition as true and how can we justify this method?
The second question is: can we apply this method without using a propostion as part of the justification?
And the final question is: how can we ensure all methods are used correctly, without error?
The biggest hurdle seems to be the first one- how do we justify our system of justification? It seem to me that we either need a method of justification that doesn't need to be justified (how would we know one when we see it?) or a justification that doesn't relate to any method of justification (which doesn't make sense).
All and every propositions or methods are relevant here- no matter how much they diverge from any norm, so give whatever you've got.
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I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
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To prove a preposition you will invariably use other prepositions, which must be proved as well or assumed to be true. So this 'proof' will always looks like a bunch of prepositions one implying the next with very general prepositions at the base. The issue is, can we prove the base prepositions if we assume other even more basic prepositions to be true ? There's any form of guarantee that this process can be iterated infinitely and at the end we will end up with system of prepositions all implying each other without any contradictions ? If yes, then we would be a facing a ultimate proof - a proof that can't be challenged at any grounds, ever.
However It seems the guarantee we have is precisely the opposite. We know for sure that in any system like this we will stumble in prepositions that cannot be implied by any other (despite being truth !), so we must assume it is true - making any possible proof never a "ultimate proof". This have to do with Godel and high level logic I'm not familiar with.
Here I'm assuming proof means mathematical/logical proofs. But if these kind of proofs have this weakness all other kinds of proofs (experimental, statistical) inherit this very same issue because they all relies on logic.
I won't lie, I'm don't know for sure what I'm talking about. This a very superficial understanding of things, so hopefully someone will correct me or give a better account of this topic.
BGU Control
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BG Auras
As far as proving the assumptions themselves? Well, let's put it this way, no one has convincingly proven a primary presupposition to base all other proofs of Truth on. Plenty have tried. You can trace this back all the way to Plato with the forms and before. More recently (relatively), Descartes' Meditations essentially try to start with a single truth, that God exists, and he extrapolates from that. Kant claimed there are a priori truths (truths known without experience) that can be used as a foundation, though like logic, at some point you have to bring in subjective and therefore flawed experience. The Logical Positivists of the 20th century tried to posit truth in language itself. Except none of it has really panned out. I think you have to take this sort of metaphysical examination with a grain of pragmatism (or perhaps religiousity) and just take a few basic things on faith and go from there.
Edit: I'll add, once you get to the experience side of proofs (the assumptions), then enters problems of doubt and the impossibility of complete knowledge. The idea that something can happen a million million times exactly the same way, but nothing logically allows you to assume that it will continue to that way indefinitely. An interesting thought experiment that illustrates this involves reverse engineering a computer program. You enter an input, 1, and it outputs 1. You do the same for 2, 3, 4 and 5, and each time it displays your input. You do this up to the number 1000, and it stay on the same. We can confidently speculate that the program is merely output=input but there is nothing we can do that can prove that with absolute certainty. For all we know, the program could be written output=if(input<1000,then"input",otherwise "input*input"). In some sense the history of physics and our understanding of it in context of scale is an example of this. Essentially, we cannot have complete knowledge of the state of existence, and therefore can only make approximations to truth.
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
Agree generally.
As for the last part, I disagree.
Belief is not required for thought and action. You can think and act in terms with something without believing it, and do so according to a pragmatic ideal- which is also itself not believed but rather taken a principle of practice.
I talked a bunch about this idea and my specific version of it in the other thread I linked, here's a summary:
"Let us consider a hypothetical scenario. I am in a hallucination but don't know it. I can think normally, and consider things in the usual manner which leads me to the idea that reason is the guide for understanding. I don’t know that reason works, but within my experience, it seems to be the only sensible decision- my experience conforms to it. Within my hallucination, I experience a sequence of what seems to be the consequences of my actions. Every time I do a particular something, a particular something else happens and there's no apparent cause of that event other than my action, is it not valuable to use that information to inform other decisions? If at any point, I do that action and the result I thought would happen doesn't happen, and there's no apparent disruption, would it not be valuable for me to re-evaluate my idea? Even if I find out that it was all just my mind playing tricks on me, I have nonetheless done something of value in potentially improving the experience of the hallucination- it may well be that in my hallucination I was capable of affecting what happened- that some of what seemed to be was what was.
Considering this scenario, how do we differentiate between it and our own experience? How can we determine that existence is reasonable and predictable, or that our sense are accurate? This seems to be impossible to prove, yet it is clearly abstractly possible (that is, it may or may not be true, not that it is metaphysically possible as this is uncertain) that it is true. Given this, it is possible that our decisions are meaningful and our experience constitutes a reasonable reflection of reality. So we have something to gain from taking our experience as it is. Do we have anything to lose? It doesn’t seem so. Whether or not our experience is true, it is valuable to treat as if it is true."
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
This is a good account of the problem.
So far everyone seems to be siding with the philosophical scepticism.
Waiting for a foundationalist/infinitist/coherentist to offer a more opposing view and try to make a definite proof .
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
Also, the edit above concerning absolute certainty of our experiences. There is no way to view the world from the point of view of God. So to put in different words, at some point, you have to do a simple cost benefit analysis and go with what seems to be the case.
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
Name one present in my above summary.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane
My position as stated above is not a proof, but a practical framework of thinking. It doesn't rest upon a belief, it rests upon abstract meaning.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
No
I know where you are going, 'but you just doubted doubting'. But did I? I doubt it .
The most important concern to address in this area is that thinking about possibilities is a method of justification that itself needs to be justified. 'I thought about and it must be impossible' is a statement that can only be as accurate as your ability to think.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
This is a hallucination. Ok. This is real. Really really real? This this doesn't matter. Fair enough. But the moment your thought turns to action and your indecision becomes intentionality, you've implicitly found some foundation by which to moor your existence. Some belief by which to hang your faith. It's all the same.
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
Your response to this is just "I doubt it, which is an exercise of doubting. You just proved doubting is possible again. You're left in a paradoxical loop where no matter what you do, you prove that it's possible to doubt something. You just don't like to admit the logical consequence of this conclusion, so you refuse to follow the argument to its conclusion. It's basically a more sophisticated version of what Typh00n is doing when he claims to be open to being convinced by evidence that an airplane hit the pentagon, then automatically rejects all evidence given anyway.
It's much better to just take your simplified view and expand it to say, "We can ultimately prove some things, mostly self-defined concepts, but we can't ultimately prove a lot of other things. We can prove it's possible to doubt, we can't prove that we're not in the matrix."
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane
No, no, no.
It seems to me that I am doubting.
I am doubting? How can I prove it?
Again, you keep justifying things by thinking about them. How do you know this works?
Such a method of justification needs to itself be justified else it is arbitrary and cannot be relied on to determine truth. You're cheating the question by avoiding addressing your method.
You cannot answer the challenge until you can answer this part:
what justifies a proposition as true and how can we justify this method?
In order for your arguments to work, thinking about things needs to be a justification method that can also be justified.
Otherwise, I have no reason to believe that your conception of possibilities and process of thinking is anything that is capable of understanding truth.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
This is how:
Definition of Doubt: to be uncertain about; consider questionable or unlikely; hesitate to believe.
Doubt is the label we give to your lack of certainty. Your lack of certainty is all you need to know you are currently feeling uncertain.
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane
You have avoided the question.
Though it may seem to me that I am doubting, unless I can provide a justified justification system that justifies this fact or some sort of raw justification that needs no justification (how would we know it?), I cannot know.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
Doubt is a concept we invented. We know what we mean when we say "doubt". It refrences uncertainty. It must be possible to doubt something, because the very process of being uncertain about this claim is proof of itself. Because this thought process relies on no sensory information and cannot be decieved. It is a description of the thought process itself. Even if someone was controlling your mind and forcing you to doubt something you would otherwise be certain of, you'd still be experiencing what we call doubt.
The existence of thoughts are evidence of themselves. Likewise, concepts are just thoughts we labeled. They are indeed self-justified. And we know that because it would be impossible to even be doubting in the first place if it was impossible to doubt.
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane
Your justification for 'conception (of thoughts) is a valid justification' is 'I thought about it and it must be true'. Is that not circular? This is basically the same as 'the bible is the absolute truth' because 'the bible says it is'.
It's nothing to do with the definition of doubt, there's no need to talk about what doubt is, the point is whether you, or I, or anyone else, is doing it. In order to prove it, you need a complete justification and your conception based argument has a hit a brick wall in one step.
I will ask again: how do I know thinking about things is a valid method of justification?
You cannot reference your thinking, that is circular.
Let's make it a logical argument, though that weakens the breadth of the argument as in this form it relies on the truth of logic, but it makes the point well I think.
P1. Propositions require justifications not based on the proposition itself.
A basic foundation of justification logic.
P2. ‘Conception is accurate’ is a proposition
Definition.
P3. Conception is a necessary part of any method of verifying propositions
Experiential 'fact'.
C1. Therefore, conception cannot be justified.
You can't justify your method if it's the only one you've got
P5. Therefore, from C1 and P3 , no propositions can be justified
C2. Therefore, complete justification is impossible
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane
"the point is whether you, or I, or anyone else, is doing it"
Are you experiencing doubt?
Prove it.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
If the answer is anything but an unequivocal "yes" you're experiencing doubt as you think about this. That feeling of uncertainty is what we label doubt.
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane
It seems to me.
How do I prove it?
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
Doubt is the description we give to that feeling. You just proved it.
This is why concepts we use to label things can indeed be proven valid, because they are fully defined and exist within the realm of thought (which is self-evident by the thinking). Can't be certain I'm in a cold room right now, but I CAN be certain that I'm experiencing something that I have decided to label "cold".
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane
What feeling? Prove that feeling exists.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane