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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:23
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quote:
No I'm not, dude. There are certain questions I know I can't answer without much more knowledge. I should be berated for speculating on them if I were to do so. Just like people who engaged in baseless speculation back then should be. Otherwise people don't learn the lesson and we end up with string theorists. |
If everyone thought that way, nothing would ever get done. More to the point, if they hadn't started thinking this way, despite their problems, we wouldn't be where we are.
quote:
And the point is that with the level of knowledge they had there were entirely consistent viewpoints to be had on both sides of the issue. |
That is true, but it does not mean that every theory proposed is consistent - that's why they argued with each other and certain ideas got dumped.
But what's funny is that you are attributing to them a knowledge of logic that they just didn't have. Oddly enough because formal logic didn't exist and they didn't understand it. You had an education which taught you things you take for granted because they have become part of the cultural commons. But Zeno and company had to work it out for themselves - that's a lot harder than it looks because they are groping in the dark. You can't assume that they were just ignoring your methodology of investigation, since they were trying to formulate just such a methodology from very sparse materials.
Parmenides is the first person to offer a logical proof, yet even he really didn't understand the implications of what he was doing. Our modern notion of logical consistency is an artifact that is historically related to the work of the early philosophers. They had to think this stuff out and then systematize it - not an easy task. It looks easy to us because we are looking at it with modern eyes.
That is your problem. You want to look back at these people as if everything that seems obvious to you, should have seemed obvious to them, or that your methodology of investigating the world should have seemed obvious to them.
Well the news is that it didn't, and for good reason - our view of logic (what it is and what it does) developed piecemeal over the centuries - it is not a given.
It's like someone going back to the Middle Ages and trying to explain to them our values of personal liberty - they are going to think you are nuts, because they just don't do morality that way.
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001
time: 15:23
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quote:
Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
Kids- this thread is what happens when the promising topic of goat fellation gets into the hands of the dull. Be warned. |
That's because I throttled the goat after establishing a thriving fair trade pashmina business, whipped up a very taste curry goat with dirty rice and callaloo soup and with the goat's head held a ritual black mass invoking the shade of the Mendes Goat .
These things just happen in the gaps, Laz. , and time can't always be spared to inform you to stop grouting the walls of the bathroom and pop over to Bolventor for a sabbat.
Next time, though.
Last edited by molly bloom on 22-02-2005 at 17:51
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Apolyton Time is 00:23. |
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21-02-2005 16:51
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